Bear Grylls

Presenter0:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young. Thank you for downloading this podcast of Desert Island Discs from BBC Radio 4. For rights reasons the music choices are shorter than in the radio broadcast.

Presenter0:10

For more information about the programme, please visit bbc.co.uk/slash radio four.

Presenter0:34

My castaway this week is the adventurer Bear Grylls. He's like a cross between Tarzan and Houdini, drinking the liquid from elephant dung, escaping from a car as it plummets from a bridge, even eating live snakes. In fact, imagine your deepest, darkest fear, and the chances are Bear Grylls has tackled it and enjoyed it. A T V star, his survival shows have a global audience of more than a billion.

Presenter1:00

His career began when, aged just twenty, he joined the SAS.

Presenter1:04

But then a parachute jump went badly wrong. He ended up with a broken back and had to change his plans.

Presenter1:10

As he lay in his sick bed he was inspired by the childhood poster on his wall of the biggest, baddest mountain in the world. He went on to become the youngest Briton to reach the summit of Everest. Life is funny, he says. You get focused, start pumping out certain vibes into the universe, and things often begin to collude in your favour.

Presenter1:31

So the start of all bear girls then is the mental focus. I mean, of course, you have to be fit, and we'll talk about that, but it's about what's going on up here.

Bear Grylls1:40

Yeah, for sure. I think the whole kind of battle for survival is always won and lost in the mind. And I've I've experienced that many times, whether it's on high mountains or whether it's filming the Born Survivor shows.

Bear Grylls1:52

It's about sometimes trying to dig deeper than you believe you can.

Presenter1:56

And you've got to be as fit as a butcher's dog as well, I imagine. You look you look like you are. You s you's super fit.

Bear Grylls2:01

I I train hard. I I never felt a natural athlete growing up. I always had to really work hard if I wanted to be fit for climbing or whatever it was we were doing. And and I I used to hate that as a kid, but actually looking back now, it taught me a much more important quality, which is the fight.

Presenter2:19

I watched you eat deer droppings last night.

Bear Grylls2:23

I hope that didn't ruin yourself.

Presenter2:25

No, I'd had my supper. And you you've drunk from elephant dung to hydrate. I is there anything that's been too revolting for you to consume where where your director has said, Go on, Bear, go on, pop that in your mouth and you've said, No, I I just won't.

Bear Grylls2:39

Well, it luckily doesn't work like that, you know, with a small team and it's always me kind of driving, you know, the stuff. Yeah, it is, yeah. I mean, it has been a lot of things from sort of frozen yak eyeballs to, you know, scorpions and elephant dying and camel intestinal fluids and you name it. The worst was probably

Presenter2:44

Is it?

Bear Grylls2:55

Raw goat's testicles. That's with the Berber tribe in the Sahara, and I come across these guys and they said, you know, as I was with them for supper, they were gonna slaughter this goat, and the delicacy was the testicles. And I thought, oh god, you know, here we go. And I kinda learnt over the years to be very wary of delicacies. Anyway, while they were kind of sharpening their sabres, I thought I'm just gonna go and check out this goat and see what's underneath and behind it. And it was quite a small goat, but what it had was.

Presenter2:59

Pretty good.

Bear Grylls3:22

Out of all proportion. I thought it was just difficult, you know. So I did end up throwing off after that, but most of the time it works, you know, and that's the point of it.

Presenter3:32

Um father of three young sons, uh married, does your wife ever say time to knock it on the head?

Bear Grylls3:38

Yeah, I think the honest answer is that it's the unresolved struggle, I think, in my life. It's the fact that I have a job that has an element of danger to it, and at the same time, I have a gorgeous family, three young boys, that are the kind of pride of my life and trying to walk that line. And I think what I've developed over the years is a good instinct about where danger comes from. But we don't talk a lot about the shows when I'm back home. It's kind of like it was the same with my military days. You go, you do a job, you come back, and I get back, and she goes, How was it? and I go, it's hot, it was cold, it was stinky. And then we're kind of back into life and doing stuff with the kids. And I like that separation.

Presenter4:15

You're just dead. Uh let's have some music, bear grills. First of all, today, what are we gonna hear?

Bear Grylls4:19

Johnny Cash and June Carter singing at Jackson. It was actually Dan, our cameraman, who introduced me to Johnny Cash and he said, Bear, you've got the most rubbish playlist imaginable and you don't even know who Johnny Cash is. Wake up the world. And I've loved Johnny Cash ever since. That's a great song.

Speaker 44:36

Married in a beaver

Speaker 44:39

Hotter than a pepper sprout.

Speaker 44:42

We've been talking about Jackson ever since the fire went out. I'm going to Jackson.

Speaker 44:52

I'm gonna mess around.

Speaker 44:56

Yeah, I'm going to Jackson.

Speaker 44:59

Look out Jackson Town

Presenter5:03

That was Johnny Cash and June Carter and Jackson. You do put yourself in very perilous situations for your T V uh series. What's the nearest you've come to to death?

Bear Grylls5:13

You know, there have been a lot of them over the years. Truth is there's rarely a show that goes past where there hasn't been a narrow escape, whether it's for me or with one of the crew. And you know, we had one of the um crew breaks seven ribs, you know, recently in a big rock fall. He just managed to get out of the way as it's dislodged. And, you know, I've had a lot of things with big sword of crocodiles and sharks. I was bitten by a nasty viper in the Borneo jungle.

Presenter5:35

How many times have you ended up in hospital, then?

Bear Grylls5:38

Only once, which was in ironically, it wasn't the wild that got me, it was actually a falling camera. And we were in a heavy thing. I was glissading down this very steep snow ice face in the northern Rockies in Canada, and this camera came loose and just smashed into me. And they reckon if it had hit my head, it would have just not just killed me, it would have taken my head off. You know, as it was, it just missed my head by a few inches, smashed into my leg. You know, I thought I'd broke my femur, it was massive hematoma and blood.

Presenter5:44

Which is a heavy thing.

Presenter5:59

Right.

Bear Grylls6:07

But we have very clear emergency procedures on the show. You know, we have satellite phones and grab bags and antivenom and it's the only time I've had to call in a helicopter and get out of there. So it was my lucky day in some ways. Even though it was it was it was lucky that it didn't hit my head.

Presenter6:20

Lucky it

Presenter6:21

Does anything scare you?

Bear Grylls6:23

Uh yeah, loads. You know, I think there's not a day that goes by f when we're filming out in these jungles or swamps or whatever where you don't have the odd moment of boom boom boom boom boom. But I've learnt to manage that fear.

Presenter6:37

I want you to try to explain that. When when the rest of us, you know, our instinct is to run, to get away from the dangerous thing, what do you do with your instinct?

Bear Grylls6:46

running is is lack of control. And c if you lose control in the wild, that's what often is so dangerous. So you have to kind of try and hold it in. But I think the way I've learnt to deal with it is to treat fear as an emotion that's there to sharpen me for what I need to do. And it's my body giving me

Bear Grylls7:05

heightened senses and a good awareness so I can do what I'm about to do, whether it's jumping out of that plane or jumping over that gorge in a heightened state. And when I look at it like that, fear is something that can serve me rather than dominate me. You know, I'm I'm always the one who's ambitious for it and and and likes to push it, but I've also, as I said, try to hold that awareness as well.

Presenter7:28

And you were hardly groomed for this sort of life. Given th I mean, you had what sounds like a very establishment early uh life. You know, you went to prep school and then you went to Eton. Your father was the Conservative MP, Sir Michael Grylls. What was what do you think was sort of notionally planned for you?

Bear Grylls7:43

Um I think, you know, my dad passed away ten years ago now, but I look back now having had kids and I think the one thing he instilled in me well was what matters in life is to follow your dreams and to look after your friends along the way. And that mattered much more to him than good school reports and stuff, luckily. He really encouraged me as a kid to dream and to explore stuff and we used to climb a lot together and it was a really powerful thing as a young boy growing up and so I think my upbringing was much more about that than anything else.

Presenter8:17

Let's have some more music then. What's the second disc we're gonna hear today?

Bear Grylls8:20

So, this is a song by Brad Paisy and Alison Krause. We were in the Chihuahua Desert in Mexico, we'd finished filming, waited for the helicopter to pick us up, little homestead, and it was about ten miles from the nearest track La Lone Road, and there was this little girl aged eight there who lived with her grandparents, you know, real sort of hillbilly farmers. And she had a little iPod, and I sat and it was dawn, watched the sun come up, and I said, Tell me your favourite song on this. And she stuck one thing in my ear and she had the other. And she played me this, and it's a beautiful song, it's quite depressing because everyone dies. But it's a really lovely melody, and I kind of associate it. And the song's special'cause of that girl.

Speaker 38:56

She finally drank her pain away a little at a time But she never could get drunk enough To get him off her mind Until the night

Speaker 39:11

The fun

Speaker 49:13

To your hand and pull the trigger

Speaker 49:18

Finally drank away his men

Presenter9:24

That was Brad Paisley and Alison Krice and a whiskey lullaby. So, Bear Girls, you were born in 1974. Where was home?

Bear Grylls9:32

I was brought up in the Isle of Wight, which I used to love as a kid growing up. In the summer it was more like a Butlands holiday camp, everyone pile down there and it's fun. And then in the winter it was wild and everyone kind of disappeared. And I love that, you know, about it. I love sort of pitting myself against, you know, winter weather or big seas and I'd see my dad on the shore walking along as I'll be kind of a hundred yards out fighting into the waves. But those are great moments.

Presenter9:57

But he was very outdoorsy, your dad.

Bear Grylls9:59

Yeah, he was a Romery's commando beforehand and you know loved all the climbing and for me as a young kid, you know, my way of finding that intimacy with him was we'd climb together on all these sea cliffs around the Isle of Wight and I loved that and it wasn't that I loved being cold and scared because I didn't but I loved to be close to him and hanging out with him and that was my way of finding that.

Presenter10:02

Bye.

Presenter10:21

Did he ever say to you that it's too dangerous, time to go home?

Bear Grylls10:25

Um my mum would say that more. Dad kind of loved all of that side of it. Um I mean the one time went wrong was when I was about nine. There was this harbour where we grew up and at low tide it was like quick mud, this whole thing. And I I remember thinking, I wonder if I could cross the harbour at low tide. Of course got two hundred metres out, sinking further and further till I eventually I was basically up to my neck in this quick mud.

Presenter10:46

And it's quick.

Bear Grylls10:47

couldn't move and the lifeboat and the coast guard eventually had to kind of get us out of there. And um and my mum was so furious that I'd been so stupid, she made me do chores for the head of the lifeboat for the next three weeks I was mowing his lawn.

Presenter11:02

And you uh have a big sister. W was she involved? Was she the rufty-tufty type?

Bear Grylls11:06

Well, she was eight years older than me, but I was like her kind of pet project, I always think growing up. My mum had lost three um you know, she'd had three miscarriages in between us and so when eventually I kind of came along, Lara, my sister, was delighted, but I was like a her doll. She'd dare me to do everything. You know, she said, I'll give you ten p if you eat this raw pack of bacon And I think, brilliant, you know, ten p, great and you know, and she always kind of says that's where I developed this cast iron stomach from.

Presenter11:16

Nice.

Presenter11:26

Do you think

Presenter11:34

And you were christened Edward. It was your sister that that named you Bear, was it?

Bear Grylls11:38

Yeah, I was I was she called me that from like minute one. Uh it was always bare and it's kind of endured and I mean A seven I used to hate it. I think why can't I just have a normal name? But actually it could have been much worse, so I was lucky really.

Presenter11:50

Let's have some more music then, Beer, what's next?

Bear Grylls11:53

Um this is a song Amazing Grace, but it's sung by one of my best buddies called Chris Hutchison. And the song is the ultimate song of kind of redemption I suppose, a story of you know this violent drunk slave trader who finds a strong faith. And for me as a teenager to know this song and to realize that faith doesn't have to be soppy and wet and actually there could be strength in it was very powerful. So that's the song. It's sung by Chris. He's got a beautiful voice and it always makes the hairs of my back and my neck go up.

Speaker 412:23

It was grave.

Speaker 412:24

Let's talk.

Speaker 412:27

My heart to fill.

Speaker 412:31

And grey

Speaker 412:34

My fears really

Speaker 412:40

How precious did that grace your be?

Speaker 412:50

The how I first be

Presenter12:56

That was your friend Chris Hutchson and Amazing Grace. Your home life, when I read about it, it sounds yes, very outdoorsy and you had this very loving, close bond with your father, but but slightly eccentric, too. Would that be fair?

Bear Grylls13:09

Yeah, maybe. I think when you're a kid nothing seems eccentric, you're just living it. And and you know, we we live in a you know, wild place up in North Wales on a little island and a houseboat on the Thames and people think that's a bit kind of wacky, but we we love that, you know, and and we do lots of kind of expeditiony camping stuff with the kids and I like to give the same love of the outdoors to my kids that I've felt.

Presenter13:13

It is living in

Presenter13:32

With your childhood, I'm thinking specifically of meals at irregular times, candlelight rather than electricity. Did your dad.

Bear Grylls13:39

Well, that came from my mum more than anything, because, you know, mum's brilliant, but she's quite eccentric, you know, I think would be the safe way of saying it. I remember once as a kid sitting at the table and seeing my dad walk in, open the fridge, and look at this plate of pork chops, and they'd turn green and silvery, you know, when they started to go off and he went, Oh, god, it smells awful throwing them in the bin. And then he'd walked out, and then mum had walked in the other door and opened the fridge and gone, Where are the pork chops? and they'd come out of the bin and then back in the fridge and it's like, you know. But um, that wasn't abnormal, that was kind of part of

Presenter13:56

Yeah.

Presenter14:11

Did your grandma live in a gypsy caravan, is that right?

Bear Grylls14:14

Um sh yeah, she did. But that was kind of in the latter stage of her life when she was um maybe not in as sane as she had been in the early years. But she was an incredible lady, my gran, and

Presenter14:21

Had been in the

Bear Grylls14:25

She'd been one of the first Northern Irish women MPs and was a really cosy, lovely person in my life as well growing up.

Presenter14:32

Um the biggest, baddest mountain, then, the poster of Everest. Wha when was that up on your wall? How young were you?

Bear Grylls14:37

probably about eight or nine and you know it's something my dad had given me and it was just a you know, again, a powerful shared dream. You know, I'd remember as a kid lying there in bed and looking at this thing silhouetted in the dark and trying to imagine what it would really be like.

Presenter14:50

Really?

Bear Grylls14:52

To be up there, and it's what I always dreamt of one day attempting.

Presenter14:55

And you spoke to your dad about that, did you? You t you discussed one day you might find out.

Bear Grylls14:59

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I totally agree.

Presenter15:00

Eaton does encourage individuality. How did they welcome your adventures?

Bear Grylls15:06

I think that school was unforgiving of one thing, and that was not being interested in anything. It didn't matter what you were into, as long as you were into stuff. You know, you didn't have to be good at football,'cause I wasn't particularly good. You didn't have to be good at academia,'cause I wasn't, but you just had to be into stuff, and that was much more the culture.

Presenter15:23

What were you good at at Eton?

Bear Grylls15:25

You know, Eton was the school that had these massive classical buildings. So as soon as I arrived, quite nervous at thirteen, the one thing I noted is that these are ripe for climbing. And I used to lead endless night time expeditions to try and kind of climb the highest thing and leave something on the top of the flagpole or with a few friends I'd lead them through the sewers under the town at night time and we'd use playing cards stuck in the brick of the wall to mark our way back and you know it was a great adventure, endlessly building rafts and out of old baths and going down the Thames in them and that's what I loved and that was a lot of my identity I think at school at a school that was essentially quite a daunting place to go to.

Presenter16:02

Was it very important that you impressed your father?

Bear Grylls16:05

Um maybe, maybe. I never really felt that, though, at the time. You know, I just loved being with him. I never felt any pressure. It was much more about it's good to love what you do, and that was what he encouraged me.

Presenter16:19

Let's have some more music then. We're on disc number four, Bear. What is it?

Bear Grylls16:24

Well this is Nickelback and Rockstar and it's kind of pretty wild and reckless and irreverent and everything kind of that's also kind of good. And it's a fun song and I listened to this when I led an expedition through the Northwest Passage last year up in the Arctic ice as far as you can see moving through you know this sea and listening to this song that's basically laughing about the celebrity culture saying how ridiculous it is and listening to the song and thought great.

Speaker 416:51

The coolest bars in the BIB with the movie stars Every good gold digger's gonna wind up there Every blade boy bunny with a bleached blonde hair And we'll pot out in the private rooms With the latest dictionary of Today Zuzu They'll get you anything with that evil smile Everybody's got a drug dealer on speed now Well

Presenter17:21

That was Nickelback and Rockstar. That that feeds into your idea of just having a reckless life and not being this.

Bear Grylls17:26

Columbia.

Presenter17:26

A keenly physically disciplined individual, I'm imagining.

Bear Grylls17:29

You've got to have the odd outlet, haven't you?

Presenter17:31

The SAS then. Why did you want to be in the SAS? It it strikes me, given your background, you would have been perfect officer material. They would surely have welcomed you into the armed forces with open arms.

Bear Grylls17:41

Um I'm not sure about that, but my dad had been a Smarine. I thought what's one better than that?

Bear Grylls17:47

So I thought I'm just going to give the SAS go as a recruit, as a trooper, rather than as an officer. And I actually failed selection first time round for 21 SAS, but they encouraged me to go back and I got it second time and joined as a soldier. And it was a bit daunting when you turn up because you speak kind of posher. But the great thing about the SAS is that it's the ultimate meritocracy. You know, it doesn't matter what colour you are, what you speak like, if you've passed and you've gone through that course and you've come out, you're totally accepted.

Presenter18:05

Possible

Presenter18:17

Can you give me a glimpse of what it's like when you're going through the training? What what would be one of the things that stands out to you as as the hardest thing they made you do?

Bear Grylls18:24

Well, it is a long selection process for the Reserve SES. It runs over eleven months. And we had about one hundred and fifty of us start and I think four of us pass at the end. You're going to be broken and exhausted and wet and cold and drained. And it's a process of attrition where you're covering huge distances across the mountains, carrying very heavy weights.

Presenter18:28

Right.

Presenter18:43

Typically huge distance would be what?

Bear Grylls18:45

you know, you would do up to like fifty five, sixty kilometers, you know, but you're talking the weight of a small child on your back, you know, through waist deep snow, that would run over, you know, one or two days. One or two days. And it is relentless. But

Presenter18:55

One or two days.

Bear Grylls18:58

Selection tests spirit. The process is designed like that and what they want is the people who in those moments can give more than they ask to, can dig deep, find that little bit extra and push on.

Presenter19:09

And so when you were in the SAS, how much time do you spend in the field as a soldier?

Bear Grylls19:16

Yeah, a lot. I think sort of people have an image of special forces soldiers around the world of just being endlessly clad in black, swinging in through, you know, embassy windows and stuff. But most of it is being able to work in small teams under pressure in difficult places and do the job that you've been trained to do. And a lot of the training I did was all the skydiving, the climbing, the demolitions, the combat survival. That became my specialty in the medic stuff.

Presenter19:25

Yeah.

Presenter19:40

War demolitions?

Bear Grylls19:42

Blowing things up.

Presenter19:44

Just checking.

Presenter19:46

Um and the obviously that the team spirit and the camaraderie is very important. But trained killer, obviously, how how did that sit with you?

Bear Grylls19:54

Well, I don't think my wife would see it like that as she sees me nowadays in the bath with lots of bubbles and a few rubber ducks and all the boys in there. Um so you know, but that was a part of my life and I took huge pride in serving with Twenty One and it was a you know huge part of my life then but you know it is a part of my life that's gone and what I value now are the friendships I made and a lot of the skills that you know I still retain.

Presenter20:18

Did you kill anyone?

Bear Grylls20:20

That's not for a question. You can't ask that sort of thing.

Presenter20:24

Let's have some more music then. Bear, what's next?

Bear Grylls20:27

Uh this is Buddy Holly, Every Day. It was the first song I ever learnt on the guitar. It's a song that I played to Woo Shara, who became my wife, so yes, it worked.

Speaker 420:38

Every day it's a getting closer Going faster than a roller coaster Love like yours will surely come my way.

Speaker 420:50

Hey, hey, hey, hey.

Speaker 420:52

Every day it's a gettin' faster Everyone said go ahead and ask her Love like yours will surely come by

Presenter21:05

Buddy Holly and Every Day. Let's talk about skydiving in Zimbabwe then. You were actually not with the SAS when you did that. Were you break at the bottom? That was a nice sort of playful vacation you were on.

Bear Grylls21:11

We were on a break at the end of the day.

Bear Grylls21:15

It was a break and I'd been down in Southern Africa helping with some anti poaching stuff. We were just on a break and we were skydiving and having fun, and it then um I had a jump that went very wrong.

Presenter21:27

And what went but I mean, briefly, what what was it that went wrong?

Bear Grylls21:30

I was jumped from about fourteen thousand feet. It was getting dark and the canopy basically ripped when it opened. I came spiralling down very fast, blacked out for a second, smashed into the desert and very hard, bang, straight on the middle of my back and broke my back in three different places and really spent the next year, year and a half back in the UK in military rehabilitation at Headley Court at the the rehab centre there. And that was a dark time, I suppose, for me in my life of everything you take for granted, like your health and your movements, suddenly has been ripped from you and it was a hard time, yeah.

Presenter22:11

Was there a point at which the doctor said to you, We don't know how the recuperation's going to go?

Bear Grylls22:16

Yeah, I think in many ways the hardest bit was not knowing. Nobody would give me an answer, you know, and all I knew is I was on my back, I was in these braces, I couldn't you know, it was agony if I moved just a few inches one way or the other, and you know, I'd been so active, and suddenly you feel hopeless, and that was a really frightening new feeling. And people often say, Oh, you must be very positive to go from that to the roof of the world eventually, but it wasn't like that. It was this dark, stumbling, tricky journey where you depend on your friends and your family so much and you rebuild it inch by inch. But um

Presenter22:20

Really?

Presenter22:52

How do you do that? Do you d I mean, what what were the conversations that you had with with your parents in that period?

Bear Grylls22:59

Well, you know, they were incredible, and my great friends were incredible, but you can almost feel guilty that they're being incredible. But the doctors actually score me the miracle kid there, because they said actually you came so close to severing your spinal cord and being paralyzed. And the fact is, I could walk and I would learn to climb again. And as I realized this, then the focus for me became that Everest dream once more.

Presenter23:21

Did you know, I'm thinking now as a mother, what did your mother say? You know, if if if a child of mine had been in an accident like that and had been able to get up and walk and live an able-bodied life, I would not be encouraging them to climb the biggest mountains.

Bear Grylls23:38

Well that's what mums are.

Presenter23:41

Were you mumbed?

Bear Grylls23:41

She certainly didn't encourage it. You know, she kept saying, I've read that there's, you know, one in six people are dying up on Everest and who attempted, and you know, don't be stupid. And I kinda look back now and I think poor then, because I was so single minded and so driven and so focused for it, but I'd lost so much that I want this was my way of reclaiming that. And, you know, people used to think it was crazy, but the only people that didn't laugh at me were the staff at the rehab center because they understand the importance of hope.

Presenter24:13

Let's have some more music then. We're we're on disc number six. What is it?

Bear Grylls24:17

Uh well this is The Monkeys and I'm a Believer and it was the song that Shara and me when we got married. Uh we walked down the aisle to the song, you know we were quite young, we didn't want a boring wedding. Everyone turned up dressing loads of flowers and short trousers and a few friends got together, sung this song, Acapella, and it's about believing in love when you sometimes think maybe it won't come to you.

Speaker 424:37

Oh then I saw her face And now I'm a baby And not her trait worked out in my mind

Speaker 424:50

Be in love.

Speaker 424:52

I'm a believer, I couldn't leave her if I tried.

Speaker 424:58

It's a solid place, now I'm a believer.

Presenter25:05

That was the Monkeys and I'm a Believer. And you said there that that was that was sung by friends of yours, Acapella, at your wedding. Y you met Shara when you were training for the Everest climb, is that right?

Bear Grylls25:16

Yeah, I met her in Scotland. I was taking the time to train hard and climbing every day. You know, the last thing on my radar at the time was meeting a beautiful girl and falling in love. But love happens like that. Sometimes you get hit broadside by it. But, um, you know, I then disappeared to Everest for three and a half months and

Presenter25:34

But you'd already phoned for her by that point, had you?

Bear Grylls25:34

But you'd already

Bear Grylls25:36

Yeah, after about um kind of pre really soon.

Bear Grylls25:40

Great day in my life meeting her.

Presenter25:42

She must worry about you a lot.

Presenter25:44

I mean, I know you say you don't talk about it, but there must be worry in her eyes when she waves you off on these trips, on these expeditions.

Bear Grylls25:50

Yeah, I think there's a lot unspoken actually. But as I said, she trusts me and the that kind of puts the responsibility back onto my shoulders to keep getting it right. And for me, it's always about coming home in one piece.

Presenter26:04

There is the most extraordinary picture of you sort of teetering across this crevasse on what looks like quite a thin, wobbly metal ladder. What what is that?

Bear Grylls26:16

That's exactly what my mother says. I love it.

Presenter26:17

Yeah.

Bear Grylls26:19

A wobbly thin teetering ladder. Oh, but that's um on the lower part of Everest, where you get this tumbling cascade of frozen ice, lot of crevasses ripping apart, moving, shifting all the time. You use these very lightweight aluminium ladders to span the crevasses.

Presenter26:33

So the crevasses I mean I'm looking

Bear Grylls26:35

You do need to have a head for heights for them because, you know, you get hundreds of feet of just blackness underneath.

Presenter26:40

At one point you fell down a crevasse. You surv how come you survived? I mean, surely it should have survived.

Bear Grylls26:45

But I got lucky that day, you know, I was descending at the end of the day, with tired, crossing what had been the solid frozen ice and I was coming off one rope, unclipped, grabbed the next one, was about to clip in, just saw this crack go

Bear Grylls26:59

straight under me. There was a second pause and then it just went and dropped. And I literally clipped in as it dropped and that saved half second saved my life. Fell, ice knocked me out. I came to just swinging on the end of this rope. But you know, we have these moments on big mountains sometimes. They're not the times I'm proud of. You know, those are your grace and luck cards that you hope not to delve into too often.

Presenter27:00

Do you

Presenter27:25

What about making it to the top of Everest? What? Describe the feeling to me.

Bear Grylls27:29

Well that was a you know a dream come true literally and the adrenaline is pumping and I just remember crying and crying and I think for me just because that little part of me that wasn't always so little that ever since hospital bed had never really actually believed I could do this that was being silenced and it was an incredible moment for me on you know I remember collapsing my knees on the summit I think out of exhaustion more than anything and Neil who I was with arrived and both of us with our masks off just hugged and you see the curvature of the earth at the edges and you're just very aware you're somewhere special.

Presenter28:08

And the big question that that people often ask is the why. Yeah, I know it's because it is there, but but

Presenter28:14

Why?

Bear Grylls28:15

The reality of it is always very hard and and y you know, we had four climbers who lose their lives up there whilst we're on the mountain, two died of the cold, two fell, and in some ways I returned from that mountain less confident than I went, if that doesn't sound too weird. So it wasn't this thing for me that I've conquered Everest, I can do anything. It wasn't like that, it was a feeling of gratitude to survive this mountain and couldn't wait to get back to see this really foxy bird I'd met before I left.

Presenter28:29

Yes.

Presenter28:42

Let's have some music, Bear Grylls. Tell me what's next.

Bear Grylls28:45

So this is Simon and Garfunkel and Bridge Over Troubled Water and I suppose, you know, especially in the Born Survivor journey for me, there have been so many hundreds of chasms and gorges and white water and you name it that I've been lucky to come through. But I've been so grateful for that quiet presence of great friends and also my Christian faith. And this talks about those bridges over troubled waters.

Speaker 429:10

I'm on your side.

Speaker 429:17

Landscape

Speaker 429:21

And friends just can't be found like a bridge over troubled water.

Speaker 429:36

Far where we go

Presenter29:41

So that was Simon Garfunkel and Bridge Over Troubled Water. Quite a romantic bunch of songs you've chosen.

Presenter29:48

Are you quite aware of that?

Bear Grylls29:49

When my friends heard that I was coming on this, they went, oh man, there's gonna be a lot of easy listening.

Presenter29:56

So you made it back. Did that seal it with Shara, do you think? Do you think she thought, Yeah, he's my action man?

Bear Grylls30:02

No, I think she couldn't have been less impressed by that. She's very, very grounded, and you can't get big headed for long in our household.

Presenter30:08

Do you have a ritual for leaving? Are there certain things that you do and you must always do? I'm not talking about superstitions, but I'm just talking about a sort of ritualized.

Bear Grylls30:13

I'm not talking about super

Bear Grylls30:17

Really try and not make too big a song and a dance about it for the kids and for Shara. So I tend to just pack the night before quietly on my own. She might come and kind of chat to me then, and then when I go the next day it's not a big song and dance for the kids, and they get really upset, and that's what often breaks my heart as well if they get a whiff of it. It's difficult, you know, it's always hard being apart, and whatever, whether it's soldiers going away somewhere or whatever, it's the hardest thing, isn't it? And I'm I don't think either of us get any better at it over the years.

Presenter30:17

The

Presenter30:48

And you've got this, as everyone knows, this huge worldwide, very successful career. And it's interesting that you draw a parallel there with soldiers going off to war, because of course, even though they might not always know what they're fighting for, they know their purpose and they know how serious it is. Here you are, in a calculated way, putting your life on the line, and yet you're doing it to make television programmes. That seems like a hell of a risk to take for quite you know, for a relatively unimportant thing.

Bear Grylls31:16

You know, for a relative

Bear Grylls31:18

Totally, yeah. And the crew are always saying to me it's like a sort of a gramophone record with them of saying, Bear, it's just T V, it doesn't matter, just, you know, be careful on this. And I've I didn't listen to it so much in the early days, and that's why I had so many close calls in the first few years of this. And actually, we manage risks, you know, much better. And also the bigger picture is what the show, I think, does. And I get so many letters every day from dads and kids are saying, you know, it's really inspired me to go and camp together and go fishing. And you think that's actually what for me the show is about.

Presenter31:52

You find yourself now in, I imagine, a sort of terrifically responsible position. You are what's known as the chief scout to 28 million scouts around the world. I'm thinking.

Presenter32:04

If I'm a mum of a boy who's in the Scouts, I'm not sure I want somebody as irresponsible as Beer Grylls being their ro being their role model.

Bear Grylls32:10

Well, the kids love it.

Bear Grylls32:12

Well, for me, it's about encouraging young kids around the world to have access to adventure. You know, when I was seven, all I wanted to do was climb trees and be caked in mud. And I just never grew out of that. And my job now is to encourage kids to get out there and do that. There's a world to be explored.

Presenter32:29

Bear girls, you're probably the only person I've ever spoken to.

Presenter32:32

On desert island discs who could actually escape from this island? How would you do it? What would you do?

Bear Grylls32:38

I think people often think of desert islands as really beautiful, nice palm trees and beaches and stuff. You know, I was one the other day and I thought from the air was I was a better drop into it. I thought it looks incredible. I can't wait to get on it. Just covered in coral, covered in snakes, covered in tarantulas and guarded by sharks like a sort of natural fortress. And you think, this is why it's uninhabited. So they are hard places and don't underestimate them. But therein lies the challenge as well. And it's about finding fresh water and assessing your options. Do you go or do you stay?

Presenter33:09

What do you think you would do? Would you make a break for it?

Bear Grylls33:12

I I think I probably would, but a lot of you know, real life survivors have had to live or die by that decision, and that's a difficult one.

Presenter33:19

I think we'd see you back on homeland before too long. Tell us what we're going to hear finally today then, Bear Girls.

Bear Grylls33:24

Uh well this is the promise from the soundtrack to the piano, the film, the piano.

Presenter33:28

And why have you chosen it?

Bear Grylls33:30

The first expedition after I broke my back was actually before Everest and it was in the Himalayas. It was a manta called Amma de Blam and it was a kind of big landmark moment for me of now I've got a chance, I've proved myself fit and strong, Everest is within our grasp and I had this song playing loud in my ear. I hear this song and I'm straight back on that face.

Presenter34:46

The promise from the soundtrack to the piano played by its composer, Michael Nyman. So, Baer, I'm going to give you the Bible and the complete works of Shakespeare, and you can take a book of your own. What would you like to take?

Bear Grylls34:58

I'd like to take Robinson Crusoe. It's a book that my dad read to me when I was young. I've read it to my kids, and it's a great story of adventure, survival, love, hope and family.

Presenter35:13

It's yours, and you get to take a luxury as well.

Presenter35:16

I don't imagine you probably even want a luxury, but I'm going to force one on you.

Bear Grylls35:19

I love luxuries. I'm going to take a little laminated picture of my family that I always travel with in the sole of my shoe. And it's been a kind of real help for me so many times and it's really kept my spirits up. So that's what I would take.

Presenter35:35

Okay, that's yours too. And if you had to save just one disk from the waves, which one would you save?

Bear Grylls35:41

Easy, amazing grace. For me my faith is a kind of really important part of my life and has been a real backbone through lots of difficult times and that song speaks right to it.

Presenter35:51

It's yours. Beer Grills, thank you very much for letting us hear your Desert Island discs.

Bear Grylls35:54

Thank you for having me.

Presenter36:32

You've been listening to a download from the BBC. You'll find more information on the Radio 4 website: bbc.co.uk slash Radio 4.