'A lot of actors find they get put in a box, but I have been able to break the rules'

He is a mountain of a man, but while his trademark bluster and swagger have ripened with age, even as a child he was a force to be reckoned with. While many who grew up in South Yorkshire's mining villages during the 1940s never left, Blessed was busy developing a wanderlust which would take him from Mexborough to the West End, Hollywood and Mount Everest.

A Raleigh bike was his passport to freedom and whenever he had the chance he would cycle the 80 odd miles to the coast. It did not matter what the weather was like when he got there. Away from the sight of the pits and the colliery winding wheels he would spend the day fishing or swimming in the ice cold North Sea.

"I cycled everywhere," says Blessed, who remains a pin up for boy's own adventures. "I would be out when the sun came up and wouldn't get home until it was set. There was no better feeling at the end of a long ride than eating fish and chips on the beach at Scarborough. I've always found it just such a romantic place."

Those early memories are why Blessed is particularly looking forward to returning to the resort tomorrow. He has agreed to host the inaugural gala of Scarborough's new open air theatre, introducing Dame Kiri te Kanawa and Jos Carreras and providing a little padding between the music. He has looked at the programme, scribbled down a few notes, but he is not one for scripts and those lucky to have tickets will be treated to Blessed live and unleashed.

"Any chance I have to get back to Yorkshire my heart rejoices," he says. "Truly, it is the centre of the Earth to me. The merest glimpse

of the moors makes me feel alive and breathing in the sea air lifts the sprit.

"I have never met Dame Kiri or Jos Carreras, so that will be a treat and when I think of hearing the Huddersfield Choral Society together with the Orchestra of Opera North, I am in heaven. It will be absolutely fabulous."

Classically trained himself, opera is one of Blessed's many passions and he is liable to burst into song when least expected. Sadly, there are no plans for him to perform tomorrow, but should Carreras find himself in need of an understudy, he would, of course, be happy to oblige.

"I realised quite early on, the thing that singers fear most is getting a cold," he says. "I can just croak my way through a song and I have many different voices, but these professionals are genuinely scared of a sneeze. If they suspect anyone has a cold, they'll lock themselves in the nearest cupboard.

"When I took part in Celebrity Stars in their Eyes as Pavarotti, I was lucky to meet the great man. He was also terrified of sniffles, but he was generous with his time. He told me never to sing consonants, only ever sing the vowels. It's good advice and I've been following it ever since."

Talking to Blessed now, it is easy to believe he was always destined to join the exclusive family of British luvvies, but his background could not have made him a less likely candidate. The son of a miner, when his father was injured in a pit accident, he was forced to leave school at 14 and become the breadwinner. He secured work first as an undertaker's assistant and later as a plasterer, but his love of high drama bubbled underneath his blue collar.

"I've always written my own script," he says. "When I was 12, I appeared in a school production of Rumplestiltskin. Afterwards, one of the teachers said, 'Blessed, you've got a talent, you should think about becoming an actor'. I didn't really know what acting was, but I felt flattered someone thought I was good at it.

"At the time, amateur theatre was rampant in South Yorkshire and the standard was amazing, equal to any professional company. I was a bit of a rough diamond, but I started going to weekend drama courses and spent my evenings watching other people perform."

Blessed was in good company. Patrick Stewart, who grew up a few miles away in Mirfield, was doing the same acting rounds and the pair were both eventually called to audition for the education authority to see whether they were worthy of a drama school grant.

"We were suddenly confronted with all these grammar school boys who had incredibly grand plans about what they wanted to do," says

Blessed. "Patrick and I could just about write our names and the date on the top of the application form. But they turned to us and said, 'Don't worry, boys, we've had an eye on you for the last two or three years, we know you're going to be just fine'."

They were right. While Stewart, a few years his junior, headed for the Royal Shakespeare Company, Blessed won a place at Bristol Old Vic and left South Yorkshire with the blessing of both his parents.

"My mother never had any doubts acting was the right thing to do," he says. "But I think my father was a little worried. However, when he saw me appear as Bramwell Bront, that changed everything. Afterwards, he turned to me and said he had found the death scene absolutely terrifying. He had never seen an audience sit in stunned silence before. He lived until he was 98 and his opinion was always important to me."

Leaving drama school, Blessed was cast as Pc Fancy Smith in Z Cars and after three years in the BBC drama series, he was in much demand. While still best known perhaps for his portrayal of Caesar Augustus in I Claudius or his various Shakespearean roles on both stage and screen, his is an eclectic CV.

In 1980, he showed a comic touch as Prince Vultan in Flash Gordon, later filled the small screen as Black Adder's Richard IV and has been a regular on the panto circuit for years. To him. it's all one big performance.

"I have been very lucky," he says. "A lot of actors find they get put in a box. I have been able to break the rules. Next week, I'm going to become a voice for sat nav. I've been practising my, 'turn left... turn bloody left'. For some people I know having me as a passenger is a frightening prospect."

Blessed will be 74 in October, but he shows little sign of slowing

down. He has already been persuaded to do another four- week stint in panto –- this time in Sleeping Beauty in Covent Garden – and he's currently planning yet another expedition with the Sheffield mountaineering company Jagged Globe.

Ever since he climbed Mont Blanc as a 17-year-old, Blessed has had a thirst for adventure. He has attempted Everest three times, but not yet reached the summit, has ventured deep into the jungles of Venezuela and holds the record for being the oldest man to trek on foot to the magnetic North Pole. Next, he is eyeing up Mount Olympus.

"I'm going to climb it with a group of Olympians before we head to China to scale some peaks and pick up the Olympic torch. It's all good fun and I am determined to go back to Everest. The last time I could almost touch the top. I've never had a problem with altitude, but we didn't have any oxygen and one of the other climbers wasn't doing so good. He had five children and I had to turn back to rescue him.

"Acting is an incredibly difficult business and only a very few people are judged to be any good at it. Ninety per cent of the time they are shot down. Going out on adventures has none of that uncertainty.

"There's a line in Hamlet which describes acting as holding a mirror up to nature. Shakespeare was right and for me, the expeditions are life. They are the real thing.

"When people ask, 'Isn't it dangerous', I always reply, 'The greatest danger in life is not taking the chance to go on adventures'." By way of proof, Blessed has also made a bid to become the first celebrity in space. He has done some training in Russia and, given the opportunity, he would take his seat on a shuttle tomorrow.

"We are all children of stardust," he says. "Space offers us all some wonderful possibilities and I find it very sad that Britain's space programme was pulled in the 1970s because someone didn't believe in satellites. People say it's expensive, but they forget about the amount of jobs and spin off projects it could lead to. For me, space would be the ultimate adventure. We really must get out there and explore."

It is exactly the philosophy by which Blessed has lived his entire life.