lads

HEARTBROKEN trainer Warren Greatrex has bravely opened up on the deaths of three young workers at his yard – remembering them all as ‘great lads’.

The Lambourn-based jumps trainer has had to be a father figure and counsellor for those rocked by the suicides of Michael Pitt, David Thompson and, most recently, Billy Moffatt.

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Pitt was just 19 and a promising amateur jockey when he took his own life in July 2021.

Greatrex, who had just moved to his Rhonehurst yard at the time, described the soul-crushing experience as ‘horrible’.

Just seven months later, in February 2022, popular stable lad Thompson, 25, was found dead.

The huge Chelsea fan, who was reported missing in the days prior, had written a letter saying the happiest days of his life had been working for Greatrex, who said the second death ‘hit me so hard’.

Then in May this year, Moffatt, who was in his early 20s, was found dead in his accommodation – the third death in just four years.

Greatrex, a Cheltenham Festival-winning trainer, admitted he ‘never thought’ he would have to go through such shock and pain.

He told Luck on Sunday on Racing TV the passing of all three and the devastating impact on those who worked alongside them every day was still ‘raw’.

And he said to know the lads you would have had absolutely no idea any were struggling to the extent they were.

Explaining the magnitude of the losses and how best he tried to deal with it, an emotional Greatrex said: “I am the trainer so when I have a member of staff I am like a father figure as well.

“Parents entrust you to look after their children.

“I do feel responsible and all I am, and have been worried about, is everyone else.

“I never thought I’d have a situation like this.

“Even now it’s tough to talk about – but in the situation all you are worried about is everyone else.

“None of those three lads you would have had any idea that they would do that.

“All three lads were really good young men. They were funny, good to be around.

“Billy was a larger-than-life Newcastle lad who touched a lot of people because he was great fun to be around.

“But there aren’t any signs.”

Greatrex also spoke about the stresses and strains of working in the sport and how charity Racing Welfare have helped.

He said while ‘no words can describe the devastation’ of the deaths, Racing Welfare were at his yard ‘within minutes’ to offer support to those coming to terms with the losses.

His words pleading for more to be done with alcohol and drugs in racing came just days after champion jockey Oisin Murphy was charged with drink-driving ahead of his appearance at Reading Magistrates’ Court on Thursday.

Greatrex continued: “I think when you’re surrounded by young people there will be times when there will be drinking, there will be drug use – that’s just the way of the world now unfortunately.

“Maybe there is a way that people can recognise it (drug use) and help people with what they can and can’t do, or at least guide them in the right direction.

“I always find when a member of staff comes into the yard I am responsible.

“But when they leave the yard I can’t keep an eye on them and have their back or look after them all the time.

“There will be times when members of staff come to speak to me or someone else senior like Tessa my wife, and of course we always do our best to help them.

“But when they leave the yard I am helpless.

“Still, I want them to be able to come to me.

“I am a father and when my children go anywhere, or to other yards, you want them to be looked after and navigated in the right direction.”

Greatrex will take part in a marathon hike in support of Racing Welfare on Sunday – donate to their cause HERE.

A 90’s TV star looks unrecognisable after swapping lads’ mags for a luxury LA lifestyle.

The fan favourite featured in more than 30 shows – including Big Breakfast.

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Dani Behr started her career with a brief appearance on the hit school drama series, Grange Hill in 1989.

She went on to be a presenter on Channel 4‘s music show The Word for five years.

Dani became a lads’ favourite and later moved to the US to continue presenting over there.

Following brief stints on I’m A Celebrity and Come Dine With Me, she embarked on a new career as a luxury real estate agent.

In this role, the TV legend lets out and manages property for the Hollywood elite.

Fans may have seen Dani appear on popular show Million Dollar Listing LA.

She married restaurateur Carl Harwin in 2005, having two children, although the two went their separate ways nine years later.

Speaking on White Wine Question Time in 2020, she revealed her full time switch to real estate came when on-screen work dried up – around the time of her 2014 divorce.

Dani told Kate Thornton: “They don’t have careers as presenters out here, like back home.

“You’re either a news journalist or a sportscaster or a late night comedian, those were the hosts of all the shows here and I didn’t fit into any of those categories.”

She already had ties to real estate industry – with her dad himself working in real estate while her mum is an interior designer.

Dani therefore decided to study for real estate exams in order to obtain a license.

She hosted a podcast titled The Behr Essentials for two years – focusing on her career in property.

It comes as the TV legend looked unrecognisable last year while she striped off to workout gear for a fitness class.

Taking to social media, Dani flaunted her stunning figure to her followers.

She captioned the post: “I always get asked what I do to keep things tight and high and my secret weapon for the last ten years is Dance Cardio!

“Love @manumoves class- always so fun, great music and a mighty sweat!!

“You don’t have to be in LA to participate – check out manumoves.com and sign up and start dancing at home!”

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The Ibiza resident posted a video of unruly passengers aboard an easyJet flight from Luton to the Spanish island which ended with police meeting the plane on the runway

A woman has laid into English tourists after she was stuck on a flight to Ibiza with unruly passengers.

Posting online, the Ibiza resident shared footage of the boisterous Brits online, insisting that they shouldn’t have been allowed on the easyJet plane in the first place.

In a no-holds-barred message alongside a video of the packed plane where passengers could be seen banging on luggage compartments above them and yelling ‘Come on Ibiza’, the Spanish speaker said: “My flight from London to Ibiza was absolutely horrible. I was scared.”

She added that people were “standing, screaming, guys hitting each other, drinking bottles of alcohol one after the other and stopping the flight attendants from doing their job. Real hell. This video is just the end because I couldn’t film what happened during the journey.

READ MORE: Spanish seaside city with ‘five-star’ attractions is one of the best for a holiday

“It was a really wild 2.5 hour flight. This shouldn’t be allowed.” Erika said that those who had drunk too much alcohol should not be allowed on flights.

“We don’t want this type of tourism in Ibiza, they should stay at home. I had a very bad time and the flight attendants unable to do anything,” she added.

The woman added in comments to a local Ibizan newspaper that she had complained to the flight attendants: “I’m not afraid of flying because I’ve flown around the world but I had a panic attack because it was like being in a pub, in a nightclub, but in the air,” she continued.

She claimed the two male air stewards and an air stewardess on board had asked some passengers for their documentation, but were met with shouts of ‘f** off.’

A spokesperson for easyJet said: “We can confirm that flight EZY2307 from Luton to Ibiza on 16 May was met by police on arrival due to a group of passengers behaving in a disruptive manner. The safety and wellbeing of passengers and crew is always easyJet’s priority. Whilst such incidents are rare we take them very seriously and do not tolerate disruptive behaviour onboard.”

The footage was posted on Saturday, a day before thousands of people marched in the Canary Islands’ cities as part of a new anti-mass tourism protest. Locals in the Balearic Islands, which include Ibiza, are due to stage their protest on June 15.

Over the weekend, fed-up locals made their frustrations clear in the Canary Islands as peak tourism season nears, with an estimated 7,000 people marching through the streets and promenades in Santa Cruz, the capital of Tenerife, alone. The massive protests have been echoed on each of the territory’s six other islands, including Lanzarote, Gran Canaria and Fuerteventura, with organisers saying the sun-kissed Spanish islands, which are extremely popular, especially with British tourists, “have a limit”.

There have been long-running tensions in holiday destinations across Spain due to the pressure large numbers of tourists put on local resources and property prices.

Booze, sex, testosterone — those are the typical expectations from a lads holiday. But what if that’s not what you want anymore? Matt Spraggrett tells us how he fell out of love with the form

Urban dictionary defines a lads holiday as: “When you go on holiday with your ‘lads’ (mates) and you get smashed out of your head and bang about 50,000 girls.”

And perhaps that’s all one needs to know about the typical boys trip and expectations of them.

While there may be (many) men who would jump at the chance to take a no-holds-barred, booze, sex, and testosterone-fuelled trip with the lads, there seems to be a growing section that would really rather just… not.

In fact, new research from First Choice confirms that sentiment. In a recent survey conducted by the travel company involving 2,000 Millennial and Gen-Z men, it was found that 69 per cent of men aged 18-35 secretly dreaded going away with the boys and over half (53 per cent) made excuses to dodge the trip. Furthermore, a staggering 81 per cent of blokes felt the pressure to act “macho” during these out-of-control lads holidays and 66 per cent struggled to keep up with the intense partying mentality.

A few key factors contributed to their apprehension: 39 per cent of the men surveyed felt they were forced to drink more than usual on a boys trip, while 27 per cent were uncomfortable with the overspending that such escapades involve. Another 20 per cent were aware that their partners disapproved of their absence and their participation in said exploits.

Matt Spraggett, 29, is one such lad who isn’t the biggest fan of these lads holidays.

Currently working in London as an advertising manager, Matt grew up in Cheshunt, Hertfordshire, and says he had a lower middle class upbringing. His dad worked in the public sector, while his mum was a PA. Both Matt and his brother attended their local state school and sixth form and in his words it was “nothing fancy”.

While Matt doesn’t hate the quintessential boys trip, it definitely makes him “uneasy at times”. He feels it’s “largely down to the pressure to conform to a certain idea of masculinity”, which he finds off-putting.

Matt tells Mirror Travel: “Specifically, I dislike the expectation of constant, and I mean constant, drinking and the need to be ‘on’ all the time with either a loud, jokey persona or someone who is just ready to whatever the rest of the group wants to do, no questions. Sometimes it feels like a competition to see who can be the most outrageous. I’ve been on trips where guys are practically egging each other on to do stupid things, just for the sake of a laugh, regardless of any consequences they might face and after a while it can be exhausting.”

Matt feels that an all-blokes trip comes with the expectation of reverting to “some kind of adolescent version of yourself”. Matt reflects: “You’re supposed to forget about your responsibilities, your growth, and just act like you’re back in your late teens and do what the typical lads trip consists of such as, all day drinking, strip clubs, night clubs and even taking drugs. There’s often an unspoken pressure to be constantly available for partying, and if you want to chill out or do something different, you’re seen as a buzzkill.”

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Now almost 30, Matt can largely pinpoint the juncture of his life when he started disliking the notion of a typical lads holiday.

“I think it was probably around my mid-twenties, maybe 25 or 26, which might seem a little young to not want to just be on ‘lads lads lads’ / ‘oi oi’ type holiday but I think the pandemic had a big impact. I moved away from where I grew up and met a new set of friends in London, plus I was starting to take my career more seriously, and I had been in a relationship for a couple of years by that time so the idea of spending a week getting hammered and acting like an idiot just didn’t appeal to me anymore. Also, with the cost of living increasing and paying my own way with rent and bills, I became more mindful about what money I was spending on holidays,” he said.

Matt remembers being out for the day, celebrating a schoolmate’s birthday and “feeling a little out of sync with everyone else”. He recalls the conversations being “very surface level and nothing that engaging”, which led him to the realisation that something had changed.

“I don’t want that to sound arrogant, that I changed, and they hadn’t, as they had, but they still lived where we grew up and had a certain view and experience of the world, both socially and politically and mine had evolved differently to theirs. After that moment I started to want to spend my time doing things I truly enjoy — not just doing it to retain some favour with the lads.”

One holiday that sticks out in Matt’s mind which further solidified his negative feelings towards out-of-control boys trips was when he went to Thailand in his early 20s. While the vacation “wasn’t a total nightmare”, there were some tense moments that could’ve escalated and derailed the whole trip”

Matt recalls heading out on a pub crawl with the gang, when one bloke from their group wandered off and returned “about 20 minutes later and says he’s got into an argument with the locals” which resulted in “some pushing and shoving which then turned into a bit of a fight”.

The ‘very drunk’ group instantly started panicking thinking about “horror stories of foreigners causing trouble abroad and losing your passport” and subsequently “sprinted about 2km back to our hotel to avoid some angry bar owners our friend had annoyed.” Matt and the lads “moved off to another part of Thailand quickly after that”.

By his own admission, the 29-year-old feels “many guys and lots of drinks” can often lead to “an overall atmosphere of tension which might kick off at any moment”.

For Matt, his ‘ideal lads vacation’ would be “a good mix of culture and party where it’s focusing on shared interests and experiences rather than just getting drunk all day every day”.

He shares: “I’d love to do something active, like exploring the local history, going to a vineyard or seeing the best viewpoint. Something that involves an activity as well as some drinks is much more appealing to me. The vibe would be relaxed, we’d explore the place we are in rather than just going to the main strip. It’s like going to London and only going to Covent Garden, there’s so much more to see! But that’s just me.”

And while he feels that “there’s nothing wrong with having a few drinks”, he’d rather have it not be “the central focus of the trip”.

The perfect trip in his mind?

“It would be about creating good memories and strengthening friendships, not just racking up embarrassing stories of who got the most drunk. They are funny but I don’t want that to be the only thing I remember.”