00:00I was a personal trainer, sports therapist, and martial arts instructor for 20 years.
00:06Built up quite a successful company in Devon.
00:10A club, we had about 1,000 attendances a week doing martial arts and fitness.
00:16Had a three-story, four-bedroom house, a dog, a couple of cats, a relationship and everything.
00:23Then COVID hit, so literally overnight lost more or less everything.
00:29And then, yeah, relationship broke down.
00:34Lost the house, the cars, and the business and all the rest of it.
00:39But the worst thing was me having to say goodbye to my dog, to be fair.
00:44That's the one thing I really, really do miss.
00:47After COVID caused so many problems for Paul, his mother was then diagnosed with cancer,
00:52and he decided to move in and care for her.
00:54She's now doing well, and he's positive about where he is.
00:57But he says that he's no one special, and there are plenty more people in similar situations.
01:02He says giving where you can will provide a cause and thanks from the universe.
01:08The universe provides if you do the right thing.
01:11And then they've got a, you know, everyone knows the saying, never give up.
01:16But I kind of flipped that a little bit.
01:21What I think it means is always give down.
01:24I mean, I was the lowest of the low.
01:26I had no one basically underneath me apart from nature.
01:30So I was giving to nature.
01:32Always give down, and the universe will provide.
01:38Paul now spends his days litterpicking around Cardiff and being that positive influence he wants to see.
01:44He never intended for it to be what he does full time,
01:47but is happy that it's given him the opportunity to help others and especially help nature.
01:52Yeah, well, as I said, when I started litterpicking, I was only going to do about half an hour.
01:58That was three and a half years ago now.
02:01I haven't stopped since.
02:02So I just go out with my litterpicker about six days a week.
02:07I do as long as I like or can.
02:10I've got issues with my hands where they don't really work properly just due to an old rugby injury.
02:15But I do what I can when I can.
02:17Paul says that everyone should get involved in helping nature where they can.
02:21And he's part of a group that goes around every week to help clean the streets
02:25and offers his open invitation to be a part of a group that does so much good.
02:31So, yeah, we are called the Wombles of Wales.
02:35We are a litterpicking charity and we are very recently an official charity.
02:40We're a small charity without a charity number yet, but we are an official charity.
02:45And every Monday we work with other charities, with CAVTAS and an amazing group called Phoenix Heroes
02:52where we do a community litterpick around Cardiff Castle.
02:56And that's everybody can get involved.
Comments