this is bbc news, the headlines: the us and uk have accused iran of attacking two tankers off its coast in the gulf of oman — one of the world's busiest oil export routes. tensions are already high in the region, and the incident has pushed up oil prices. the leadership in tehran has denied any involvement, and accused the us of trying to sabotage international diplomacy. in the past hour the pentagon has released video which us central command says shows the crew of an iranian patrol boat removing an unexploded limpet mine from the hull of a japanese—owned tanker. sudan's military rulers have admitted they ordered the operation that led to the killing of at least a hundred peaceful protestors 10 days ago. they were demanding a swift transition to civilian rule. the un security council has condemned the massacre and called for an end to all attacks on civilians. now on bbc news, it's

extra time with rob bonnet. hello. i'm rob bonnet. welcome to this edition of extra time. what does an international cricketer, a leading run scorer of his time and a player who relished the machismo challenge of facing the world's fastest bowlers do when his confidence is shot and he's finally told it's time to retire. in the case of our guest today, england's robin smith, he enters a downward spiral of depression fuelled by drink and involving also divorce and eventually a determination to kill himself. thankfully he is still here and he is about to tell us his story.

robin smith, welcome to extra time. test batting average for england of 43.67 from 64 matches between your debut in 1988 and your last test match in 1996. it's a proud record. it's a very proud record and a record that i had no idea as a youngster that i would be playing test match cricket, having been brought up in the apartheid system in south africa. very, very lucky that mum and dad were both born in england. and an encouraging sporting environment from your parents? very much so. before we go any further, rob, it is lovely to see you again and i don't often do interviews anymore and you suggested early on about enjoying playing fast bowling, i can assure you that i am

more nervous now chatting with you than facing malcolm marshall, curtly ambrose or courtney walsh, even without a box on. laughter. please forgive me if i sound a little nervous. you don't need protection today, robin. let's talk about your enjoyment at facing fast bowlers, especially the west indian quicks, let me take a quote from your autobiography,the judge. "i absolutely loved it. "i am an adrenalinejunkie and nothing has "ever given me a hit as good as that." what was it about fast bowling you enjoyed so much? the confidence of knowing i felt comfortable about fast bowling. in south africa we played on very fast wickets early on. it came naturally in a way. it did. very much. unlike in india where their great players are spin bowling because they play on wickets that are conducive and low and slow and conducive to spin bowling.

in south africa we had a net in the back of our garden and a bowling machine and dad continually... would he crank it up? the old man did. he thought i was weak if i could not face a bowling machine at 85 miles an hour when i was 15 years old. so that is something that i worked on at a very early age. no fear in front of it? the only fear i have now is looking back on my career and seeing the guys wearing the grills, being hit in the helmet, on the grill and thinking my goodness, gracious me. i really should have worn a grill during my career. but at no stage did i ever feel uncomfortable or ever feel that i would be hit in the face. not uncomfortable physically, but a little uncomfortable mentally. i'm going to quote again from your book. "i may have looked and performed as though i was bullet—proof "but i was hiding a heart and mind of glass." what did you mean by that?

it is very difficult, rob, when you are growing up as a youngster, as robin smith, a shy and reserved, very modest and caring, gentle, softly—spoken and then all of a sudden you are thrown into a career at hampshire where you feel as if you had to be a little something that you are not. i mentioned gently in the book about fractured identity, about being robin smith off the field and thejudge on the field. your nickname because your hair was longer and more crinkly. yes. it looked like a judge wig. so you are always battling through your life between the real robin smith and thejudge that people seemed to love your nickname because your hair was longer and more crinkly. yes. it looked like a judge wig. so you are always battling through your life between the real robin smith and thejudge that people seemed to love and enjoy watching.

you mention this again in your book. "a real eagerness to please." what was that about? trying to please your father? we were brought up in a very disciplined and different era as the youngsters are brought up here in england and south africa. it was a tough environment to be brought up in and dad was a huge disciplinarian. and always wanting to please. so when he dragged me out of bed at five in the morning to go and train there were no questions asked. what was that? was that tough love? just very tough love. hejust wanted, he was never a great sportsman, his sister was south africa's leading golf champion for 25 years and i think he wanted me to become a very good

sportsperson and encourage me, whether it be during rugby season or athletic season or cricket season. he just wanted me to make the very best of what ability i might have. and that ability was about facing fast bowling especially. but spin bowling, it was perceived at least that you had a problem. shane warne, now a friend of yours who wrote a forward to your book, one of the greatest spin bowlers that has ever lived. was that fair criticism? that you could not play spin bowling? i think it was. if you were brought up in south africa and thinking back now there was only probably about two or three half decent spinners in south africa. maybe someone like alan kourie or denys hobson. but the conditions we played under were never conducive to spin bowling. we were brought up on fast hard wickets. and you take a comparison to the indian players. the indian players are

brought up on dust bowls. and they are not encouraged to bowl fast because you cannot bowl fast in india. and all these indian players learn how to play spin bowling beautifully and then they come to australia or england and they struggle with the seam movement and the swing. and it is the same. wherever you are brought up in the world, you become accustomed to those conditions and that is where you become better players, in those conditions. towards the end of your career the perception from the press was that you could not play spin bowling. a sense, that it undermined your confidence.

you wrote that you dreaded batting like never before. to be honest, the more people spoke about it and the more i started to believe in my inadequacies against... it was distracting. that is when i lost confidence and i did not become a good player in the end. let's drill down into that, because in 2003 your contract with hampshire was terminated. cricket was your life and it was over. so many sportsmen i have spoken to about that time say it's a kind of death. there is an emptiness and what followed after that was a downward spiral, as i described in my introduction, into drink, certainly, and depression. so as that was happening did you feel that you were on some kind of slippery slope? cricket absorbed my life from waking at the age of my father dragging me out of bed at five in the morning every morning to practise cricket, all the way through to a0. it absorbed my life. i cradled the game, i love the game, i embraced it. and it was just everything to me in my life. and when the time came that i was encouraged to retire, then at the time it wasn't my choice.

i wrote in the book it was not my choice. i was disappointed at the time. i felt that i had another year left in me. maybe for the wrong reasons now that i look back and it was the wrong reason because shane warne was back in the club and i wanted another great year. at the time, your marriage was disintegrating... not at that particular time. over a period of years. you certainly hit the bottle, the vodka bottle. there had been instances where you were unfaithful to your wife as well. this was a low ebb in your life, wasn't it? it was. i would suggest that this was after i had finished playing professional sport.

the club employed me in an ambassadorial role where i would host in the robinson suite at the ageas bowl and i would have a vodka lime and soda and then it would become a double... you'd become an alcoholic. and then a triple. i was on the verge of becoming an alcoholic, starting to rely on alcohol rather than enjoying it. it was a refuge from reality? watching the players, wanting to be out there and desperately wanting to be there. but the worst part was i felt that i needed a change. i felt that i was getting into a rut in england and i did not know how to get out. i was doing a lot of speaking and again that encouraged the drinking. so you immigrated. so i immigrated to perth, i spoke to my wife, i wanted a nice clean start and my marriage was struggling for a long

period of time. but i really wanted to make it work because ijust felt that having two children it was important for us to grow up as a family and i also felt that maybe the opportunities in australia would be better than they are here. so with her blessing she left her family here, with her blessing we moved to australia. hoping for a new start, hoping for a bright future. why didn't it happen? well, a couple of things. firstly the dream of trying to get my marriage, living in this little dream thinking naively that just moving countries would cause things to change, it didn't. i then took on a franchise, the masuri cricket helmet that

i developed with my partner in 1989, we owned that. i then promoted it in australia and it became the most successful helmet in australia. it became so successful that i ran out of money and that was taken away from me because i could not cope with running a business. there is one thing that i learned as a sportsman, i can definitely help try and promote or try and develop the best protective helmet in the world and promote the helmet. but to try and run a business is something very, very different. so that collapsed which then, i had to sell my house and my marriage broke up. i started drinking heavily and quite happy to tell you that over a period of four years i would drink a bottle and a half of vodka a day from the bottle. that is serious stuff. it is and it is very sad and i had no idea of how to stop. i knew what was wrong, i knew i had to stop but i did not know how to. you couldn't reach out for help?

i could and this is why i am saying that many people should reach out. i could have, but i had too much pride. ifelt that i could do it on my own, that i could get through it on my own. and you cannot. there are many people out there. i understand and realise that there is so much help out there and so many beautiful people and the cricket players association here and their partners in australia, sorry, in england, are absolutely magnificent. the worst of it all, robin, was when you were disowned by your own children. that's the worst, when all you want in your life is to be a great father and i dedicated my life to being as good a father and is fair as i could and i had a great relationship with my children. which was temporarily destroyed. it was, yeah. my wife, kathy, at the time, was in england and i drank too much stupidly and went and picked up my daughter from school, ran over a little bump and she said, "dad, stop

the car, you've been drinking, stop the car." she got her way home and on the way back i was done for drink and driving. you became a slave to alcohol, you were ashamed, disgusted and scared. yes, all those things and many more. anyway, so barry richards, who is a great family friend, knew that i was in serious trouble. he got in touch with me and he said, "why don't you go and stay at my apartment in scarborough, right next to the beach, and you can maybe recuperate, get yourself sorted?" and that didn't really happen. i would walk down to the beach with a

bottle, half a bottle of vodka, look up, wanting to finish my life. i was in such a deep hole. i felt there was no way out. two people who came to your rescue was your son harrison but also then later your partner, or new partner, karin. tell us the story of how that happened. again, sitting on the beach, looking up at that rendezvous hotel in scarborough, i thought, "that's the place." and i reminded myself, what they say you are talking about. you start talking about yourself. and i said, "that's the place i'm going to finish it." and i knew exactly how i was going to finish my life. i'd had enough. you planned it? i planned it. i'd had enough of living like i was. lost hope, lost respect, laughing stock, friends, family. ithought, "no, i'm not going to put my family through any of this anymore.

"the easiest for them is to put them out of their misery." i would never have had the guts to go and bought a gun. you planned it despite knowing this would cause enormous hurt to your children. you don't think logically. you don't things like that. i was causing so much hurt to them anyway. maybe finishing it off and now i know, i look back, and goodness, gracious me, if people read the book, understand it's not the way to go. harrison basically had a conversation with you in which he reaffirmed his love for you. three days later. i knew it was going to happen, i planned it, i bought the medication, i knew exactly what i was going to do and three days later he saw me curled up on the couch,

he had a key to my apartment, he gave me some love and said, "dad, i love you, we love you, we still love you but you've got to get yourself right. you can win back the respect of everyone but dad, you have to sort yourself out." and from that moment on, i then went and stayed with my brother for a little while, trying to reduce my drinking. that didn't really help that much. went on, again, lived on my own in another apartment for six months. again, lonely, nothing to do. what saved me really was i still worked religiously 12 hours a day for six days a week and i cycled 70km a day. i'd start every 10km and pull out a little... really? you had to. itjust gives you this warmth.

it allows you to feel at peace with yourself. and then everything feels 0k. but it's not ok. it isn't. this takes this to your first meeting with karin, your new partner. and then i thought to myself, "look, who is going to be there to support you?" at the end of the day, my brother was fantastic but at the end of the day, he was going to be there for you? mum and dad. so i thought the only way for me to recover was to go back and live with mum and dad and they lived in the same apartment as karin. she had only moved down from christmas island, which is still a part of western australia but not farfrom indonesia. she'd onlyjust moved down with her young family and she saw me by the pool and was so lovely, because she knew nothing about cricket.

you opened your heart to her and she didn't know about you. the only person she knew was shane warned. it was actually quite nice to talk to somebody who had no idea. what are her qualities that have brought you back from the bank? you know, she listened. her empathy. her understanding. but mainlyjust, as a friend, she knew that i was a good guy in a very bad place and she lived on christmas island, she was one of those who, when the boat people came in, she was there to help the refugees, so she just had a lot of empathy and she could see that i was a decent guy too. probably the only one at the time. a couple more points. the first is this incident which occurs several months, i'm a bit confused with the time, you are back

in the same hotel, on the balcony, you had contemplated ending your life and suddenly... geez, i mean, rob, you mention it and to try and relive that, i try and remain strong but having walked along the beach, i visualised exactly what i was going to do and how i was going to end my life. and then three years later, when i was clean, wasn't drinking, and i was approached by yellowjersey to run the sport for rob smythe who is an absolutely amazing journalist, and i thought to myself, i spoke to karin and said,

"where are we going to make the start? "let's go to the rendezvous." it's one of the only hotels in the area. we went there, got an apartment on the bottom floor and as i sat on the balcony, i just saw this whoof, just drop a yard away from me, i looked a yard away from me and i said to karin, "someone has just tried to commit themselves, you know, take their own life in suicide." unfortunately, she had fallen into a little drain. she hadn't hit it hard. she fell into this drain and she was still breathing. jesus, i jumped over the railing, ran to her rescue, held her hand and she looked at me with these beautiful eyes, she had done her make—up, her hair was beautiful, fingernails just done. she was immaculate. and she just looked at me and her heart was still pumping and she held my hand and squeezed my hand. i then, karin had joined

and held her hand. she had just phoned the paramedics and they were on their way and we both said to her, "you are not on your own," because i think the last thing you want to do when you are in your dying moments is wanting to be on your own. and ijust looked into her eyes and the flashes that came back to me was, this is what i was going to do to myself. she then released my hand and she stopped breathing. you know, jesus... and i just thought, that was going to be me three years earlier. that is a harrowing story. it must‘ve been harrowing.

i'd like to end hopefully on an optimistic note. thank you. you are now in good form. fantastic, absolutely brilliant. but you've always got to work hard, haven't you, in everything? i was inspired by this book. i do read a lot particularly in australia about mental health and guys having this wonderful career and all i will say is, leaving a little message, there is a book of learning, it is a very raw story, i am pretty tough on myself but we've got to be prepared for life after sport. maybe it happens in businesses as well. somebody has been working on the same business for a0 years. they get to 60 and they retire. we all fall into that trap of feeling maybe worthless as well.

robin smith, thank you very much for telling us your story. rob, thank you very much. thank you so, so much. thank you. hello. as the flooding and disruption continues, particularly across parts of england, some spots have had three months‘ worth ofjune rainfall and just a week, over 150 millimetres in the wettest places. still rain in the forecast but not necessarily the same areas, as low pressure adopts a new position to the north—west of the uk in the coming days, means showers are most frequent in the north and the west. and there is, as friday starts, a fresh area of rain affecting parts of england and wales,

also rain in north—west scotland. fairly chilly for the clearer parts of scotland and northern ireland as the day begins. but where you start the day with rain, things should improve as we go through the day, it should brighten up and it will be an afternoon of sunshine and showers. here's a look at things at 8:00 in the morning. so you're in the rain in north—west scotland, especially into the western isles, one or two showers elsewhere, but where you have got the clear skies and here into northern ireland, too, your temperature could be around the mid single figures as the day first starts. but you can see the outbreaks of rain from northern england, the midlands into wales, perhaps affecting parts of south—west england, perhaps the odd showery burst towards the south—east. but the further south—east you are, may well be seeing some sunshine as the day begins. so on through the day then, you can pick out the two areas of rainfall but they are slowly easing and things start to brighten up. more widely so by the afternoon, it is sunshine, showers, may be heavy and thundery, very few for east anglia and south—east england, perhaps up to 20 celsius here.

for most of us here it will feel a bit warmer, especially where you've had days stuck in the rain. going through friday evening, we'll see another area of rain, this time pushing into northern ireland, and then feeding on towards south—west scotland, wales and western england as saturday starts. ahead of that, it will be mainly clear bar the odd shower. that takes us on to the weekend, the big picture has low pressure here to the north—west of us, it will be feeding in weather disturbances from the west this time, and this is the first one we are contending with on saturday morning. so it will be an area of cloud, some showery rain out of that, slowly moving further east as the day goes on. ahead of it, sunny spells, maybe a shower. behind it, sunny spells and the chance of catching a shower. on a fairly breezy day with temperatures topping out in the mid to high teens. now, part two of the weekend on sunday, if anything, it looks a little bit breezier, and it will be another day of sunshine and showers. now the showers most frequent in the north and west where again it could be heavy and possibly thundery, some though, will push a little bit further east on the breeze during the day. showers — not everybody will catch one.

and again, temperatures mostly in the mid—to high teens. that's your latest forecast. i'll see you soon.

this is the briefing, i'm victoria fritz. our top story: after the tanker attacks in the gulf, the us releases video which it claims shows iran removing an unexploded mine. after a controversial and difficult two years in the white house, press secretary sarah sanders confirms she is quitting at the end of the month. ready for action. a nationwide women's strike takes place in switzerland. 0 canada. toronto's raptors claim the country's first ever