I wasn't good at examinations, but I went to a very good secondary school - Bolton-on-Dearne - with wonderful teachers, who taught me drama and encouraged me in every way.

I went to drama school but it was very hard to get work until I was made assistant stage manager.

My brother Alan - who was seven years younger than me - died from leukemia when he was 52. He never knew a day's good health - I wish I could have given him some of my good health. But he was always so cheerful and sweet.

When I was 11 I played the part of Rumpelstiltskin and my teacher told me I would make a great actor.

I had to leave school at 14 because my father got injured in the mines and I had to support my family. I was an undertakers assistant, then a plasterer, before doing my military service in the RAF. All the while, I was doing amateur dramatics and dreaming of getting a scholarship to the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School.

I'll never retire. The new millennium is the age of adventure as far as I am concerned. I'm going up a volcano and off into space.

I've become quite a serious explorer: I've been to Everest three times; I'm the oldest man to reach the North Pole; and I've just been to the lost world of Venezuela.