Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
2 appearances
Adventurer renowned for rowing across the Atlantic with Chay Blythe, sailing single-handed to Brazil, canoeing the Amazon, and twice sailing round the world.
On the island
Eight records
Band and Drums of the 1st and 2nd Battalions of the Parachute Regiment
Well, music really for me is inspiration and I think the Early part of inspiration in my life after paying born in Sandhurst was joining the Parachute Regiment. and finding that this was where anything was possible. And so I will always remember really the Ride of the Valkyries, which is the regimental march.
Main Theme from Lawrence of Arabia
Well, I'd like to have uh the main theme of Lawrence of Arabia because I always dreamed, I think, in those days, in the early sixties, that I might become Lawrence of Arabia. And it's uh a lovely piece of music, it's a sort of the spirit and the dream of anything's possible again.
Well, funnily enough, this is Fool on the Hill really for the words more than the music. But uh I did decide eventually to go and live up there and start a an adventure Scotland about twenty years ago, yes.
And they had the record uh Mullovkin Tyre, which is very close to where we live, and uh I don't know, I was practically in tears when I heard it.
This was five or six years ago and I was at a low ebb and uh it coincided with Chariots of Fire and I've always looked to music for inspiration. And it certainly helped me through this and uh I thought, you know, I will come out the other side and I have.
Well, this would be uh a national anthem. This is the Marseillaise. I can only hum, you know, I'm not very musical. But in the non-grey days of my life, and this was one time, five months having seen no land, we'd just gone through two weeks of fog, homesick after Christmas, out into the glittering sun a thousand miles from Cape Horn.
Is This the World We Created...?
The next uh music is from Queen, and it's Is This the World We Created? And I think of this really. when we were in Peru, and I wake up in the mornings and I try to think that their people are still there as they were when we left and not to forget that.
Clair de luneFavourite
This would be the one I'd take with me, which would be just piano music, really. I like space and uncluttered tables and thinking is the main thing, and and I'd have Claire Delune.
In conversation
Presenter asks
4:13Did you ever try and find your real parents in later life?
No, I have walked past Somerset House and faltered once or twice, but um I didn't think I would.
Presenter asks
4:29Were you always, from the very beginning, an adventurous child? Were you a daring child?
Frightened probably I think. Really? I'm I'm frightened of the dark, I think. I know I'm frightened of the dark. I think it's that which i is an endless source of challenge.
Presenter asks
7:12What decided you to do that, to to embark on that adventure [rowing the Atlantic]?
I suppose going to see Lawrence Arabia a lot of times. Really? … I think that it was inexpensive, looking back. The boat cost about a hundred and seventy pounds, and it was a straightforward, clean thing to do, which would take only three months or so. And it was a challenge. was always looking for some sort of a challenge.
Presenter asks
The keepsakes
The luxury
What was the purpose of the trip [to Peru] in the first place?
Well, fifteen years ago I'd led the first expedition from the furthest source of the Amazon to the mouth. and in the most inaccessible part of the river I found this little jungle fortress … I was immediately drawn to this half Indian, half Norwegian man, Abel Berg … And I always wanted to go back there.
Presenter asks
14:26And you decided eventually to to adopt her [Elizabeth]? W was that suggested to you?
Yes, uh we came into this little mud hut and there was this little creature sitting cross legged on the floor. And I said, That's Elvin. I could straightway see that Elvin in her face. In these things you get very close to people on the rowing and such like. And I just felt, you know, I shouldn't let my mate down. I thought, gosh, if this was the other way round, who would look after Rebecca? And I thought I I must do something for her.
“I'm one of those people who I found as I got older I like to do things exactly how I want to do them, and you find that hard to find in the modern world a a chance of doing it on your own.”
“I've always felt that. I would get there in the end. I'm not necessarily going to get there very quickly, but I always felt that if I had to crawl along, I'd get there in the end, and it it just appealed to my sense of The possible.”
“I think that's all there is to the entire planet. It isn't such a long time, seven months, really.”