Hello, I'm Kirstie Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive.

For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music.

The program was originally broadcast in 1998, and the presenter was Sue Lolly. My castaway this week is an explorer. He developed his taste for the great outdoors when as a schoolboy in Swindon the Duke of Edinburgh's award scheme lured him away on camping trips in the Brecken Beacons. While still in his early 30s he made himself

wealthy by turning around an ailing company giving him the foundation he needed to

attempt the adventurer's grand slam. Earlier this year he achieved his ambition when he reached the

North Pole with the Norwegian Runa Geldness. So he entered the history books as the

only man to climb the highest peaks on seven continents and reach both the magnetic and

geographical north and south poles. That's a lot of traveling for a man who sees

himself as an amateur in his field. It's easy to be a starter, he says, quoting Margaret Thatcher,

but are you a finisher? He is David Hempleman Adams. Well, you're obviously a finisher,

David. You finally did the grand slam and were

awarded the OBE in recognition why you do you think what's in your genes that

makes you the great adventurer? I don't know.

I mean, my father, the only adventure he ever did

was probably going across Wind and the traffic jam.

So I'm not really sure.

I certainly know that when I did the Bronze Award, Duke of Edinburgh's

award that was an eye-opener for me. You would have been 13 would you? Yes something like

that. We had to do I think it was 15 miles and I had this fantastic teacher called Mountsall James,

old Welsh teacher and my parents were divorced and I suppose I was probably the only kid in the whole school at that time with divorce

parents and he took me under his wing and got me down to the Breckens and got me on the track of

adventure.

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