Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Adventurer and TV star whose survival shows have a global audience of over a billion; youngest Briton to summit Everest after a broken back.
On the island
Eight records
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.
Brad Paisley and Alison Krauss
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.
Amazing GraceFavourite
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
In conversation
Presenter asks
3:32Does your wife ever say it's time to knock [your dangerous career] on the head?
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.
Presenter asks
5:03What's the nearest you've come to death?
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.
Presenter asks
The keepsakes
The book
Daniel Defoe
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.
The luxury
a laminated picture of my family
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.
When the rest of us, our instinct is to run, to get away from the dangerous thing, what do you do with your instinct?
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 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.
Presenter asks
17:31Why did you want to be in the SAS?
my dad had been a Smarine. I thought what's one better than that? 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.
Presenter asks
23:21What did your mother say [about you climbing Everest after breaking your back]?
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.
Presenter asks
27:25Describe the feeling of making it to the top of Everest.
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.
“I think the whole kind of battle for survival is always won and lost in the mind.”
“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 heightened senses and a good awareness so I can do what I'm about to do... fear is something that can serve me rather than dominate me.”
“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.”