I would have said that during the early days of my life there was never a moment when I wasn't fit. We worked extremely hard on the beekeeping line, and both my brother and I used to compete, particularly when we were collecting honey. We would each have an 80-pound box of honey and we would race up the hill on the Tuakau track and race back down. We just raced all the time, and we used to keep very fit indeed.

Challenge is what makes men. It will be the end when men stop looking for new challenges.

If I'm selecting a group, the first thing I look for is a record of achievement . . . If (candidates achieve) in small things, there's a very good chance they'll perform well in big things.

I've always hated the danger part of climbing, and it's great to come down again because it's safe.

There are lots and lots of challenges that I wished - at the time - that I had done.There are lots of occasions where there were exciting things to be done but for some reason or another it was physically impossible for us to do them. I still wouldn't mind if I was able to go down into this most impressive valley in the Antarctic, but of course those things are beyond me now.

I was incredibly stubborn. I mean, I believe that my father was frequently in the right, but I would never admit it, and so we did have a few set-tos on various topics; but on the whole as I got older and my father got more mature we got along reasonably well.

My grandmother I admired even more [than mother]. She was an Irish lady and a very kind-hearted person. She had a lot of talent, she painted extremely well. She was quite a strong factor in my life.