For me, my training is a key part of my work as so often my life has depended on being able to move fast and haul myself up and out of something fast!

A friend once asked me what qualities were needed for SAS. I would say to be self-motivated and resilient; to be calm, yet have the ability to smile when it is grim; to be unflappable, be able to react fast and to have an ‘improvise, adapt and overcome’ mentality.

Our fate is determined by how far we are prepared to push ourselves to stay alive - the decisions we make to survive. We must do whatever it takes to endure and make it through alive.

Our dreams are just wishes, if we never follow them through with action. And in life, you have got to be able to light your own fire.

I miss him still today: his long, whiskery eyebrows, his huge hands and hugs, his warmth, his prayers, his stories, but above all his shining example of how to live and how to die.

Success almost always follows great attitude. The two attract each other!

I think viewers quite like it when I'm suffering or eating or drinking something horrible or really up against it in some quicksand or whatever.