Through all these times and formative young years, Lara, my sister, was a rock to me. My mother had suffered three miscarriages after having Lara, and eight years on she was convinced that she wasn’t...
There was another whole bunch of hopefuls. They would diminish down at a startling rate. We had seen it happen before.This time, though, we were there as the old hands. And it helped.We knew what to e...
The greater the effort, the better the reward. So learn to embrace hard work and great effort and risk. Without them, there can be no meaningful achievement.
The day after our wedding, we flew off on honeymoon. I had recklessly waited until two days before our wedding to book the holiday, in the hope that I would get some great last-minute deal somewhere.A...
Sometimes an ember is all we need.
Since I did Selection all those years ago, not much has really changed.The MOD (Ministry of Defence) website still states that 21 SAS soldiers need the following character traits: Physically and menta...
Pretty soon after returning from Everest, I was asked to give a lecture on the Everest expedition to my local sailing club in the Isle of Wight.It would be the first of many lectures that I would even...
Our wedding took place on a blustery midwinter day. The fifteenth of January 2000. Yet the sun shone through the clouds brightly. Shara’s father, Brian, who so sadly was suffering with multiple sclero...
Later that week, I was bicycling down a pavement in the City of London when I passed a company called DLE, which stands for Davis Langdon & Everest., I thought, as I skidded to a halt.I took a deep br...
In 1996 the disasters on the mountain had robbed Neil of the chance to go above camp four. Two years on he was here again--only this time the summit was within his reach.He felt strong and waited anxi...
I learned two very strong lessons from them: the grass isn’t always greener elsewhere, and true love is worth fighting for.
Families are like fudge—mostly sweet with a few nuts!
Eventually, at 7:22 A.M. on the morning of May 26, 1998, with tears still pouring down my frozen cheeks, the summit of Mount Everest opened her arms and welcomed me in.As if she now considered me some...
Aim to live a wild, generous, full, exciting life—blessing those around you and seeing the good in all.
I was lucky - unbelievably lucky - to have reached that elusive summit, which also allowed me to reply to that summit question with a ‘yes’. My best buddy Mick found the question much harder, as a ‘no...
It isn’t clouded by ego or others’ opinions - those fickle things live in the conscious mind. Your instinct has a clearer purpose: to help you.Listen to it. Learn to recognize it. Acknowledge it when...
The summer of 1999, we went on holiday to Spain to visit my cousin Penny, who runs a horse farm in Andalucia. It is a beautiful, wild part of the country.Shara would ride out early each day in the hil...
In every potential sponsor’s eyes, I was a nobody. And soon I had notched up more rejection letters than is healthy for any one man to receive.
In every potential sponsor’s eyes, I was a nobody. And soon I had notched up more rejection letters than is healthy for any one man to receive.I tried to think of an entrepreneur and adventurer that I...
As we pulled up at the big school gates, I saw tears rolling down my dad’s face. I felt confused as to what part of nature or love thought this was a good idea. My instinct certainly didn’t; but what...