The truth about being a female bodyguard: 'It takes its toll but I love it'
At the premiere for the new Netflix film Close on Wednesday, my fellow female bodyguards and I nodded in agreement as Noomi Rapace, playing close protection officer Sam, took the bratty heiress’ dog to the kitchen for feeding. “We’ve all been there and done that,” I thought. Just as we have told our principals – those we’re protecting – to “do what I tell you if you want to stay alive”.
Although our profession has been well-represented on screen before – in the 1992 film The Bodyguard with Kevin Costner and last year’s hit BBC drama of the same name with Richard Madden – this is the first time I have seen a woman play the role. I understand why: when I became a close protection officer at the age of 20 I was the first woman in the job. I had been a police officer so was used to working in a male-dominated industry and was fascinated by the fact there was this secret world out there which I could be a part of.
As operations director of Optimal Risk I have worked with Hollywood actors, members of foreign royal families and chief executives of FTSE 100 companies. I have seen off kidnapping attempts and threats of physical violence, as well as monitored clients in nightclubs to make sure they don’t embarrass themselves.
On a typical afternoon this summer, for example, I was in a restaurant in Knightsbridge when a passerby stuck his hand through the window and appeared to threaten my client. I took a knotted napkin – you have to be inventive with your weaponry as we can’t carry firearms – and hit him on the nose. It could have broken, I don’t know, but he ran off with no fuss.
When I started 40 years ago, it would be me in a room with ex-SAS and military guys who had never worked with a woman and who thought I was there to look after the children. But I’m not a parent and was never going to sit with a kid on my lap.
Times have changed and we now have 120 female close protection officers compared with around 4,500 men. It didn’t surprise me to see that Meghan had a female protection officer on her recent pacific tour – especially as she is pregnant and will probably need to go to the loo a dozen more times than normal. While we do the same work as the men, you’ll often see high profile women with female officers and middle-eastern families where women aren’t allowed to be with any men who aren’t either their husband or relatives.
‘The Circuit’, as we call it, has no doubt modernised - but in some ways it has gone too far. We are very close with one another and like to banter with each other, which some would now call harassment. I think it’s a shame that people can no longer take a joke. A young female colleague recently complained to me that one of the men had told her she looked nice, which she felt was harassment. I told her to get a grip – in a supportive way.
You get used to such comments in this line of work. I’ve had clients offer me their room key before, to which I always respond, “No thanks, I haven’t got time”. It’s quite funny.
As a bodyguard you should never get emotionally invested in those you are looking after nor believe they’re your friend. You will know everything about them: they will cry on your shoulder and tell you about their sex lives. You will listen intently and support them, but when the job is over you will move on. That stands even for the good looking ones, like Gerard Butler and Bradley Cooper (who didn’t cry on my shoulder, sadly).
It can be an isolating job and it does take its toll. As colleagues, we rely on one another, because otherwise you can walk a lonely road. Being a close protection officer is a lifestyle and you go into it knowing it will take over. It’s not a good job for those who want a personal life or to start a family: you can’t have a baby and still do the job. You travel for months at a time and work 24 hours a day. There are a few mothers I know, but they mostly started work when their children were older.
For me, children were never a consideration because I had a hysterectomy at 21. There was nothing I could do about it and I thought, “Box ticked, move on”. I am now widowed, but for many years I enjoyed a happy married life. My husband was captain on a cruise ship and in my time off I would fly to wherever he was in the world and join him for a few weeks.
I love this lifestyle and could never be with someone who worked nine to five. That said, after I have spent weeks eating Michelin-starred food and staying in five-star hotels, there’s nothing I want more than to come home, cook bangers and mash, then eat it while watching Eastenders. If I have a few days to spare I might even bake a wedding cake.
As told to Cara McGoogan