Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Adventurer; skied solo to North Pole, holds longest solo Arctic journey record, and retraced Scott's Terra Nova Antarctic route on foot.
On the island
Eight records
This was a real kind of break glass in case of emergency song that I had my long solo expedition in 2004
Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft
This is a song that my brother and I would listen to on Heavy Repeat in my mum's car as young kids
It's a song that brings back uh a lot of a lot of memories, I guess.
Mad RushFavourite
I remember listening to this in my headphones on a train journey... I love the fact that it's got sort of reflective, quiet bits in it, but it's got moments of real urgency as well.
They Reminisce Over You (T.R.O.Y.)
It's a bit of hip-hop, which is a sort of guilty pleasure of mine.
I had this on my big solo North Pole trip in 2004... there was something magical about that, about being transported back to civilization.
This is a song that was guaranteed to sort of keep my feet moving in Antarctica when things were tough.
This is a great thinking, a great daydreaming, great looking out of windows on aeroplanes bit of music.
In conversation
Presenter asks
0:51Are you able to feel content in other circumstances, or are you at one with yourself when you are in a parka dragging that sledge at minus fifty?
Oh, Crikey. There'll be moments of extraordinary contentment... So I'm certainly not planning another huge journey any time soon. That may change, I guess. The key there might be any time soon, I think.
Presenter asks
4:45I called you an adventurer and deliberately did not call you an explorer because you once said... Is that fair?
I've been struggling for years for a sensible sounding job title and I haven't figured it out yet. I couldn't ever claim to exploring in the Edwardian sense of the word. I'm not naming mountain ranges or or planting flags anywhere or drawing maps. So to me the interesting thing is the sort of athletic endeavour, the fact that these journeys are still extraordinary tests of endurance and there's still scope to try to do things that have never been done before. The first bit of each trip is very quite hard. In Antarctica we were dragging huge amounts of weight. We're pulling 200 kilos each, 440 pounds each. So that's sort of two fat blokes in a bathtub each for 1800 miles.
Presenter asks
14:19The keepsakes
The book
The Worst Journey in the World
Apsley Cherry-Gerrard
it was an extraordinary survival story and he's a brilliant writer.
The luxury
it's something I have on every expedition and something that has been an essential part of staying sane on every expedition.
You were accepted for officer training at Sandhurst, and I'm surprised you didn't complete the training. What happened?
What? It was a weird twist of fate really. Well, I managed to sweet talk my way into Sandhurst because I I don't have a degree... And I suddenly thought, you know, I'm not sure this is the right life for me. So I left entirely of my own accord.
Presenter asks
18:23So what was reuniting with [your father] like?
We so we met in the summer of twenty thirteen, which was before I left for Antarctica. And we clicked straight away. There was none of the animosity that I feared I might fear towards him. But also I realized there was someone I didn't know at all. Very strange feeling. So he's he's obviously my dad. We look the same.
Presenter asks
30:15So have you had very frank conversations with your dad about your achievements... Has he told you that he's proud of you?
Went gan see him. the summer before I left for Antarctica. But there was a twenty five year gap without a dad at all. I I I thought he was dead, I thought he'd gone, you know. Very sad, you know, he sort of pulled out a biscuit Tim with the press cuttings of my whole every trip I'd done for more than a decade. So I don't think that's really sunk in yet, that he'd been following along the whole time and he was proud of what I'd done.
“he said none but cowards have need to prove their bravery and I think I'm one of the laziest people going so I have to really goad myself along.”
“I'm not naming mountain ranges or or planting flags anywhere or drawing maps. So to me the interesting thing is the sort of athletic endeavour”
“Wi without that sort of role model, I was I definitely looked for men. I was looking for some sort of template, like what okay, what am I supposed to be doing here as a as someone who's becoming a man? And and the people I latched onto were relatively overblown macho caricatures of men.”
“Well, in some ways it is the ultimate anticlimax. There is nothing at the North Pole. There isn't even a pole at the pole because the ice is always drifting.”
“he sort of pulled out a biscuit Tim with the press cuttings of my whole every trip I'd done for more than a decade. So I don't think that's really sunk in yet, that he'd been following along the whole time and he was proud of what I'd done.”