Sir Ran, billed as the world’s greatest living explorer, has always been a hero of mine because he’s barking mad. He’s an adventurer who’s broken so many world records that it’s no longer newsworthy when he cracks another. To this day, he’s the only man to have stood on north and south poles as well as on the top of Everest.
In the flesh, Sir Ran didn’t disappoint. He doesn’t look like a man who suffers from Type 2 diabetes and survived a near-fatal heart attack, legacy of the extreme pain he regularly puts his body through. In fact, four months after surviving his heart attack, he ran seven marathons in seven days on seven continents.
Dress in a stylish denim shirt, he looks as rugged as the hard man he is. He speaks with the clipped tones of the English upper class, despite spending much of his childhood in South Africa, and his humour is dry and wicked. He is a guy you’d like to have a pint with.
But what also struck me was the audience. The theatre was booked out, yet there was no munching of popcorn or whispering and giggling that you get in the movies. And when someone had to squeeze past you to get to their seat, there was always a ‘thank you’. There were no tattoos or nose rings on display. There were no obscenities mouthed in casual conversation during interval
Working for a living
Sir Ran works hard for a living; he had barely finished an hour long speech about what he does to put food on the table – ie face death – and then dashed into the hallway to sign books and chat to anyone who asked him anything.
Indeed, one of the most fascinating aspects of the talk, that’s if you can top anything as gripping as Sir Ran’s life, were the questions at the end. It seems most people want a golden bullet – a single nugget of wisdom – to change their lives. Someone as charismatic as Sir Ran was surely the man to provide them with just that.
He was having none of it. He countered any ‘deep’ question about the mysteries of life with humour and understatement. For the reality is, as we all know, there is no golden bullet. The message Sir Ran was trying to convey is simplicity in its starkest form; you just do your best.
One questioner asked what mystical ‘innerness’ motivated Sir Ran. Well, he replied, motivation comes in many forms. For example, he reckons the only reason he and fellow explorer Dr Mike Stroud finished the first-ever unsupported crossing of Antarctica on foot was because Stroud, a nutrition expert, had promised the medical journal Lancet a feature on starvation. Stroud was determined to finish the trip just so he could write the article; nothing more, nothing less.
Sir Ran’s personal motivations, he said, are his father and grandfather, two men he has never met. Both died in combat before he was born. In really tough times he refuses to give up purely not to earn the disapproval of his bloodline – and then hopes like hell the chap next to him breaks a leg so they can all go home.
Staying fit
What about personal fitness? How does one stay young and strong forever? Well, advises Sir Ran, there such a thing as gravity and your muscles start to droop. Grin and bear it as it’s inevitable.
Who are his heroes? That was a simple one. His father and grandfather. But if one goes outside family, explorers Wilfred Thesiger for hot weather exploration and Robert Scott for cold.
Advice for life? Take your wife on expeditions, he says. His late wife Ginny was the communications chief on all his adventures. She died of cancer 10 years ago – something that crippled Sir Ran more than any natural extremes ever could.
So there you have it. In a nutshell, life’s golden bullets are endurance, perseverance, a good wife – and above all humour.
Also, being a bit barking doesn’t seem to matter either. Just ask Sir Ran.
