In the news this week, the polls continue to slide for Gordon Brown and some people are saying he's dead and buried. But I think the opposite - I say GORDON'S ALIVE!

We had a food store at the theatre and I used to pinch food. I pinched some trousers and shirts to keep me going but they would wear out. I was virtually on the breadline.

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.

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.

People talk about the difference between radio acting, TV acting and stage acting, but I think it's all the same. For instance, when I played Vultan in 'Flash Gordon,' I put as much energy into it as I would with 'King Lear' - it's all part of the same thing.

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.

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.