My time at Eton did develop in me a character trait that is essentially, I guess, very English: the notion that it is best to be the sort of person who messes about and plays the fool but who, when it...
Mum, still to this day, says that growing up I seemed destined to be a mix of Robin Hood, Harry Houdini, John the Baptist, and an assassin.I took it as a great compliment.
Most people crumble when squeezed, but the champion feeds off it.Develop this trait, even if you don’t feel it naturally applies to you. Embrace the dramas whenever you can - in order to practise!Tell...
It wasn’t until the final years of her life that Neville and Patsie became almost reunited.Neville now lived a few hundred yards from the house that I grew up in as a teenager on the Isle of Wight, an...
I remember, for example, the time at prep school when I was chosen for the under nines’ rugby team. Well, to be more accurate, I was chosen to be linesman, as I wasn’t good enough for the actual team....
Families are like fudge—mostly sweet with a few nuts!
During the year before Shara and I got married, I managed to persuade the owners of a small island, situated in Poole Harbor, to let me winter house-sit the place in return for free lodging.It was a b...
Almost a hundred years earlier, to the day, Samuel Smiles had written the final pages of his book It included this moving tale of heroism as an example for the Victorian Englishman to follow. For the...
…just keep going. JKG.Winston Churchill said it in one of the darkest moments of World War Two, when the outlook was as bleak as it had ever been. On 10 May 1940, the British looked to be finished. Th...
Without doubt, we all get handed ‘lemons’ sometimes in life. No one is immune from this. Maybe it’s an incurable illness, or a soldier caught in a roadside bomb; maybe it’s a duff education, a dysfunc...
There are always crunch times on a mountain when you have to weigh up the odds for success against the risks of cold, bad weather or avalanche. But in essence the choice is simple - If you risk nothin...
I mean, what does it say about someone if you describe them as a ‘trying’ person? It means they try our patience to the limit!)Somewhere in our brains the word ‘try’ gets associated with phrases like...
I exercise about 40 minutes a day, and I'll run one day and do circuit training the next day. I live in an area where there are brilliant hills and mountains, so I get a good hill run with my dog. At...
When I'm filming, survival requires movement. You need your energy, and you've got to eat the bad stuff, and survival food is rarely pretty, but you kind of do it. I get in that zone, and I eat the na...
Empty vessels make the most noise. It is true. The best adventurers and climbers, and the most successful people I know in life, are all great listeners, and they don’t talk too much.
You see, we are all a bit like grapes: when you squeeze us, you see what we are made of. And I believe that most people are far stronger than they ever imagine. It is refined within us from thousands...
When my parents were away, I would often be sent to spend the night in the house of an older lady who I didn’t know, and who didn’t seem to know me, either. (I assume it was a friendly neighbor or acq...
Wealthy people so often find that the summit of their mountains - the success that they sought - isn’t enough. And they are right. It isn’t enough to satisfy our deep hunger for meaning and purpose. (...
We were on a family holiday to Cyprus to visit my aunt and uncle. My uncle Andrew was then the brigadier to all the British forces on the island, and as such a senior military figure I am sure he must...
We were now receiving daily very accurate weather reports from the Bracknell Weather Centre in the UK. These gave us the most advanced precision forecast available anywhere in the world. The meteorolo...