MOST people spend their 60s contemplating a well-earned retirement. Sir Ranulph Fiennes is currently spending his grappling with the joys of new fatherhood and planning his next attempt on the world's highest peak.
But then the Baronet turned global adventurer has never trodden an orthodox path.
His staggering achievements to date include the only successful circumnavigation of the globe on its polar axis, becoming the first person to walk unaided across Antarctica, and an unimaginable seven marathons on seven continents in seven days, just months after a heart by-pass operation.
This year he raised millions for Marie Curie Cancer Care by scaling the notorious north face of the Eiger, despite suffering vertigo.
His autobiography, Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know therefore makes compulsive reading, if only because you can't imagine how anyone, never mind this most English of Englishmen, could manage to overcome such outrageously difficult challenges and still come back for more.
In this Outloud interview Fiennes talks about what pushes him on, his two fleeting associations with the movie world - one welcome, one that almost earned him a prison sentence - and learning to change nappies.
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After Eton, Ranulph Twistleton-Wykeham Fiennes, 3rd Baronet, served eight years in the same army regiment as his father, whom he never knew, and was seconded to the SAS where he specialised in demolitions. He was later kicked out for blowing up a film set in Dorset.
His last two years of army service was spent in Oman, where he earned a medal for bravery.
Back in civvy street, he decided to put his skills to use as an adventurer and, with the help of first wife Virginia, Ginny, who was the first woman to be awarded a polar medal, he began carving his name into history.
His most notable endeavour was the completion of the Transglobe Expedition in 1982, with Charles Burton, and still unsurpassed. He was awarded an OBE in 1993 for human endeavour and charitable services. He is also the only living person to hold a Polar Medal with two bars, signifying visits to both poles.
After his wife's death from cancer in 2004, Fiennes remarried and with wife Louise, her son Alexander, and their daughter Elizabeth, lives on a farm in Exmoor.
As well as accounts of his expeditions, including
To the Ends of the Earth (1983),
Atlantis of the Sands: The Search for the Lost City of Ubar (1992) and
Mind Over Matter: The Epic Crossing of the Antarctic Continent (1993), Fiennes has also published a number of novels, including
The Feather Men (1992), and the best-selling biography of Scott's south polar expeditions,
Captain Scott (2003).
Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know, £20.00, is published in hardback by Hodder & Stoughton, ISBN 978-0340951682 Please use the commenting facility to let us know what you think of this book, using the following ratings:
1) Dull as dishwater
2) Okay, but could have been better
3) Pretty good, decent holiday read
4) Really liked it, can't wait for the next one
5) FANTASTIC - couldn't put it down! The full article contains 600 words and appears in n/a newspaper.
