My dad was opening fast bowler for Yorkshire's second team and I couldn't believe he could die. He wasn't going to get better for at least six months, so I left school early to become the family breadwinner.

The misapprehension about me is that I am some loud, rampant maniac. I am actually very pensive and quiet.

You can't call it an adventure unless it's tinged with danger. The greatest danger in life, though, is not taking the adventure at all. To have the objective of a life of ease is death. I think we've all got to go after our own Everest.

I love Scotland - I was made an honorary Wallace after my work on 'Braveheart,' you know. If I have two or three days off, I love nothing more than driving up there and climbing around Glencoe.

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

My biggest love is space. I completed 800 hours' space training in Moscow and I became the world's oldest man to go to the North Magnetic Pole. At 67, I also became the oldest man to reach 28,400ft on Everest without oxygen.

Ninety nine per cent of the time, for anyone who wins or makes money, it makes them happy.