I've completed half of my space training at Space City in Moscow. I love adventure, and I've been training in a centrifuge and MiG Fighter with a view to going into space and being a spokesman for space exploration!

The household I grew up in... was rather like an Ovaltine advert. There was a huge fire, a kettle on the fire, the oven with the bread being baked every day, and there was the radio; it was very magical to hear all these wonderful programmes.

There will be no funeral! Before I get too old and ill, I'll go to South America and live among the Pemon people and meditate. When the time is right, they can throw my body into the volcano.

I can't retire from life. I love life too much and I cannot wait to start the day.

My parents were so proud when I got a scholarship to go to theatre school - it was unheard of that a coal-miners son should go to drama school.

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.

In the Arctic I met some Russian sailors on a submarine and they chorused, "Gordon's alive!"