Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Polar explorer and member of the first British all-women teams to reach both the South and North Poles.
On the island
Eight records
I Am I Said particularly because I feel a lot that I'm on two shores. I love the Arctic, my passion's out there, and I also adore my home life and my children. And sometimes it battles, and sometimes it's just fantastic.
Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)Favourite
I love Annie Lennox, I think she's got a fantastic voice. She to me is a great woman. And this record in particular is Sweet Dreams. Oh gosh, Sweet Dreams are made of this and life, and I love this record.
I love the Jam. I always wanted to be a Rebel. It takes me back to my youth when we all used to dance to it. And for me, this brings back great memories of my youth.
Swan Lake, Op. 20: Act IV: No. 29. Scène finale
I only went to the ballet as recently as around three years ago, Pom Oliver took me, and it just hit me emotionally. The music, the sounds, it reminded me in many ways of the Arctic and and how it moves. And I loved the grace with the dynamic music, and I just love this music.
it really is interwoven with the foam. And I just watched them and had so much admiration for them and what they achieved. And every time I listen to this, I really think the impossible is possible.
which really reminds me of the Polar North Pole girls, Pom and Caroline, and it's sort of a a group uh record. ABBA's something that that binds us all together. It's just such fun and great.
She has just the voice to die for. And Feeling Good, my marriage did split up after the 97 relay and it was a real traumatic time for me. But I moved on and this was I sang this all across Antarctica and going to the South Pole was me starting again a new life.
sometimes out of sort of disasters great things happen and what happened out of my disastrous sort of breakup of a marriage was that I met a wonderful man, a wonderful man who I now share my life with and this record is just the way he is and it's Oranoco Flow by Enya and it's me and him together in a wonderful way.
In conversation
Presenter asks
0:27Why do you do it [polar exploration]?
I've always believed that you should challenge yourself and do something extraordinary. And then … A newspaper advert um came up that was an advert for ordering women to apply for the North Pole. And so I applied … having started that journey, I fell in love with the Arctic. I come from an ordinary background, and for somebody like me to go to the Arctic, which is magnificent, beautiful, and challenge yourself and get a world record. Why would you not do something so fantastic?
Presenter asks
2:26What about those times [when] you've seen people that you travel with struck down by frostbite and gangrene?
It is appalling. Pom particularly, who was on the North Pole two thousand two team, she had horrendous wet gangrene and frostbite. … Because you're living in quite a dirty environment, you can't wash and you can get infection. And then gangrene gets into the real painful frostbite and starts to eat away at your toes, so they start to rot, and it's just appalling. And as Pom took her boots off on a night, the smell of gorgonzola cheese would just hit the tent, and we'd almost gag with it. She was in such pain, she would weep when she put her boots on. And then to keep the expedition alive, she went out of that tent every morning and skied for nine hours so that the expedition wouldn't stop.
Presenter asks
5:51The keepsakes
The book
The Worst Journey in the World
Apsley Cherry-Garrard
I'd like to take the worst journey in the world, because then I can dream of polar adventures.
The luxury
I want a bar of soap to keep clean because that's what I always wanted when I was in the Arctic and the Antarctic: washing.
What's been your parents' response to this extraordinary adventure?
My mother has always and absolutely been behind me, and isn't it wonderful? I think at the very beginning in 1997 when I began this, my father found it a little bit difficult. He's from a background where women don't go out and do these things. But what I would say about him is he still supported me and actually he's now proud of the things I've done and sometimes I my mother's heard him boasting about his daughter.
Presenter asks
7:51What do you mean it wasn't acceptable for you [to go to university]?
Well my father would would like me to say this but the truth of the matter is that I in those days, um in my father's ideas, um long aired layabouts went to university that just couldn't be bothered to get a job. You know, people worked, they went out and they brought money into the family and and brought income in.
Presenter asks
13:17As you were leaving hospital [with triplets], what did they say to you?
There was one nurse in particular called Carol who came up to me and she said to me as I was leaving, she went, Ryan, she said, I have to say this to you. When you leave this hospital, you will not cope. She said, I'm not saying that because I want to be horrible, because I want you to be realistic, seek advice, take help, and above all, don't feel you've failed. And as she said it, I thought it was a wonderful thing to say, actually. But I also thought inside myself, I've waited six years for these. I will cope. Not only will I cope, I'll enjoy these babies because this is what I've wanted.
Presenter asks
18:26What happened to you on that first weekend when you all got together [for selection]?
Uh we got together and um I had borrowed all this military equipment from my friends and I turned up and every single woman there had outdoor experience and I did feel totally and totally outclassed and out of my depth and my thoughts for the weekend were just get through it and that'll be fine. You've had an adventure and get through the weekend and that's it.
“I've always believed that you should challenge yourself and do something extraordinary.”
“The children keep me safe, because when I get to a piece of particular tricky ice that might be thin, I think about them. And so in many ways I use the children to make safe and sensible decisions rather than recklessly just charging ahead.”
“I chant their names just to get me through the day and get the rhythm and keep their picture in my mind. And it just drives me on and stops me from the pain and thinking about.”
“I was sobbing most of it. … There was a time that I was in so much pain, the rucksack hurt, it was raining, I couldn't see anything, it was dark, and I distanced myself from the front person and the person behind me, not enormously, and just cried for the sheer horror of it all.”