Dan Snow's History Hit - Sir Ranulph Fiennes on Shackleton

Episode Date: September 26, 2021

Sir Ranulph Fiennes is possibly the most famous living explorer but he believes that the greatest ever polar explorer is Sir Ernest Shackleton. Although Shackleton's expeditions largely ended in failure and disaster his inspirational leadership, bravery and temperament have all been a key source of inspiration for Sir Ranulph during his many adventures. In this episode, Sir Ranulph joins Dan to talk about the incredible journey Shackleton and his men made to save themselves after the loss of their ship the Endurance to the Antarctic ice. Sir Ranulph also uses his similar experiences in the 'polar hell' of the antarctic to give a unique insight into Shackleton's life and work. He also guides Dan through his own life and what it takes to plan and execute a successful mission in the most extreme environment on Earth.

Hi everyone, welcome to Dan Snow's History. Sir Ranulph Fiennes is a national treasure. He has shattered records. He has grabbed the public imagination. He is one of those explorers who does actually explore. He has inspired people around the world. He's run seven marathons and seven concerts on seven days. He's in the Guinness Book of Records on many things.

And actually, his true legendary status can be seen by his full name, which is Sir Ranulf Twisleton Wickham Fiennes. What is not to like about that? As you'll hear in this podcast, we talked to Ranulf Fiennes about Shackleton, the great Antarctic explorer. But actually, we talked mostly about Ranulf Fiennes, and why not? Ranulf Fiennes is driven by a desire to live up to the reputation of his father, a man that was killed in Italy in the Second World War before Fiennes was born. He feels that his failure to follow in his father's footsteps and command his father's unit in the British Army is what's driven him to do all the insane things that he's done. But there you go. You listen to

this podcast, you'll realise Sir Ranul Fiennes considers himself a failure. I don't know if there's hope for the rest of us or what the hell that means, but it's pretty crazy stuff. He's just written a wonderful book on Shackleton. And frankly, as he explains in his podcast, he's pretty well-placed to know exactly what Shackleton went through and what he achieved. So in this case, it's worth listening to the messenger

as well as the message. If you wish to watch the documentaries we've got going on History Hit TV at the moment, they you wish to watch the documentaries we've got going on History Hit TV at the moment, they are flying off the shelves. We've got tens of thousands of people subscribing, lots of people watching all sorts of documentaries from the Stone Age to the Nuclear Age. We're on Netflix for history. That's what it is. Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of videos and all the episodes of this podcast, by the way, without the ads, which some people may enjoy. So they're all there historyhit.tv

go there today you get 30 days free if you subscribe today join the revolution but in the meantime listen to one antarctic legend talk about another sir ralph vines on shackleton rand thanks so much for coming on. Why Shackleton? Because I spent a lot of time doing things which he tried to do and didn't succeed. And a lot of the time, we, our group in the 60s and 70s, had no polar orbiting satellites. So there was no GPS or sat nav or sat phone. So we had heavy gear, which is exactly the same as Shackleton and Scott had to use, not because we wanted to be old fashioned, but because nothing had changed in that respect. And we were able to explore properly, meaning where no human had been before or flown over before, 900 miles

from the South Pole from the Greenwich Meridian approach line. And one expedition that we managed to do was the first journey around Earth vertically. Lots of people had been around that way. Nobody had been around that way. And my wife at breakfast, just after we got married, suggested that this was one thing that the Norwegians hadn't beaten the Brits at. By which time we'd learned that there are only two Poles and the Norwegians had pretty much broken all the records. And if you don't go for breaking a record, you won't get media coverage. And if you

don't get that, you won't get sponsorship. And Ginny and my rule, which was the opposite to Shackleton, was that we would never pay anybody anything for anything at any time, whether it was goods or services or an icebreaker or whatever it was. Shackleton made a bad part of his name. Basically, everything about Shackleton was really marvellous. He was a human being capable of beating misery and persuading his muckers to beat misery and torture by the worst possible wet, cold living conditions and hunger and scurvy and everything else like that. Nightmare existence. And his cheerfulness and his word was providence, i.e. trust to luck and you'll be all right. But he did get into heavy debt, which made him very unpopular, particularly in Australia

and New Zealand. And he needn't have done if he'd spent a little bit more time. and he needn't have done if he'd spent a little bit more time. And Ginny and I learned that that's what you've got to do. And so after seven years of getting on a telephone people to sponsor us, we had 1,900 sponsors. Seven years of work just to get the sponsorship for one expedition. And it was an expedition which consisted of various bits, which had failed under Shackleton, failed under Scott, failed under Amundsen, failed under all sorts of other people you won't have heard of, trying to do bits of cold parts of the world. We planned carefully how to do

what they'd failed to do, even the Norwegians who are the number one in this business. to do, even the Norwegians who are the number one in this business. And so it goes back to determination, I think, which we recognise in Shackleton. Why did Shackleton and why do you do those things? Many, many reasons, like everything really, you know, it's got multiple background to it. But it was the way life treated me. My dad was killed commanding the Royal Scots Graves in the Second World War, wounded five times, led against Rommel in the Battle of Alamein, and led on landing in Salerno and so on. And I respected him.

He was killed four months before I was born. And mum brought me up on stories about dad. And so I just wanted always to do what he did, which was to be commanding officer of this great Scottish regiment. When he took it over, there were 600 grey horses. And in Palestine, his job as training major was to teach those lovers, Scots, of those horses with names, bomf tanks, 60-tonne tanks, teach them mechanics when they didn't understand about turning a tap on the mechanic sort of thing. So you can imagine the speed and the difficulty of that changeover against the Germans. And the story is about him were legion. And I joined that regiment only 18 years after he was killed. And lots of the soldiers there still remembered him, Colonel Luggs, because he had ears. And they loved him. And I loved his memory. And I wanted to do that. But in his day,

with the horses, you didn't have to go to Sandhurst with A-levels. By the time I came along with 60-tonne tanks, you had to have maths and physics and so on to get to Sandhurst. If you don't get to Sandhurst, you're not going to get into the British Army as a regular officer. And regular officers will overtake you within the regiment over the years to the top of the pinnacle, which is colonel of the regiment. But it took me until I was 24 before I accepted that. which is Colonel of the Regiment. But it took me until I was 24 before I accepted that. So I failed to do what I wanted to do with my life due to not getting my A-levels. And I would say to anybody who wanted to get into the world of exploration,

or do something like that, try harder at the vital bits and pieces that you need en route to achieving it. Well, just think how you might have succeeded in life, Ryan, you know, if you got those A-levels. If I'd got the A-levels, I hope I would have ended up as Colonel. The day before yesterday, I lectured to the regiment in Lucas in Scotland. And it was just wonderful seeing them parade through Edinburgh in front of the castle, bagpipes playing with a whole load of ex-1950s and 60s and 70s soldiers and three or four colonels who would have been at the age that I would have been when I was colonel, sort of, if I'd succeeded. I think they were breathing a sigh of relief that you failed your A-levels, probably. But what about Shackleton? What drove him, do you think? Shackleton was driven, which I've put closely into the book after reading everything there was

to read. It was only 100 years ago. People are lots alive today. And in the 60s, I remember we were getting a ship for a polar expedition, our group. And we went to look at a ship on London Thames. And there were two of the doctors who'd been with Shackleton parading and talking about the old times. So we're not talking about all that difference in time. And I knew about Scott, who was linked, of course, with Shackleton. And the one thing led to the other I suppose as things went by and there are other polar people and what I've been doing because I didn't do the military stuff is specializing in polar travel and breaking world records which even the Norwegians haven't broken and one

particular one took us ten years just to do one record. And that was the first journey vertically round the polar circumference of the world. Did you choose polar regions like Shackleton because the other bits of the world were starting to be filled up? The empty space on the map weren't there anymore? Why did you choose the most inhospitable, deadly place on planet Earth to go to? Yeah, they certainly were. Those adjectives you use were correct. They were hell-like. And if you're writing about someone who went through hell,

it pays if you've actually been there. I thought, no one of the 69 biographies have been written by somebody who has done the same sort of hell-like stuff. And if you're writing about sheer hell, which Shackleton went through, as you'll see when you read the book, then you might as well have experienced that same hell yourself. What drove Shackleton to that hellish landscape? Because it was records. And as the records go, they get more and more difficult. So if you're coming into the era of Shackleton, as I say, within living memory, then they are going to be pretty difficult because all the ones that are less difficult, the Norwegians were already done. And there are only two poles, not like climbing the north face of a new mountain because there's dozens of them.

While we're on the subject, what's been your hardest record? The hardest record, apart from the one I've just been talking about, which took 10 years out of our lives, three years to do. We knew it might take five years if we didn't do certain difficult bits in the short summer, and we'd be sitting there for a year. We spent eight months living together. That's the two guys I chose out of 800, the base commander, Morse expert, my wife, Ginny. She became the first woman ever to receive the Polar Medal, the first woman ever to be accepted into the All-Male Arctic Club. Four months ago, she was given by the Foreign Office a new huge mountain, it's been named after her scientific work during that expedition.

Mountain's been named after her scientific work during that expedition. That expedition took her and me seven years unpaid working in pubs in the weekend in London to make a living to pay the gas bill. And we chose two people out of 800, one of whom had been a whipped bread beer salesman in London, nothing else. The other one from South Africa, Charlie, had been a butcher in Cape Town, which went bust, so he joined the British Army as a corporal. We chose them because of their character, not their skills. You teach people skills on the character, which you can't change. And Ollie Shepard was the only one with O-levels out of me and Charlie. So he became the dentist, Chelsea Barracks for a month, came away with an array of instruments, Gestapo-looking things. So you had to have extreme toothache to go anywhere near him on

the expedition. He was taught, again at Chelsea Barracks, to take out your appendix in case of a... Because we would be living in the middle of nowhere, 1,200 miles from the nearest humans, for eight months of the Antarctic winter, just together, locked down, outside minus 50. If you could imagine that, eight months, just them, the two of them, me and my wife Jenny and her Jack Russell. And that was it. Jack Russell, incidentally, got into the Guinness Book of Records as the only dog ever to have peed on both poles. And he was pet of the air in the United Kingdom. And yeah, we've done a lot of expeditions. And they, to answer your question,

have to get harder and harder because we need media coverage, because we have to have sponsorship, 100% sponsorship. And in getting to choose the people, what you're looking for, apart from their basic character, they're not going to be sarcastic.

You live together. And I said we had eight months in the Antarctic sector. When we got to the Arctic, we had another eight months, the same people and the same Jack Russell just living there for eight months in the extreme territory, in the dark, in the cold. People presumably can understand it a little bit more from English pandemic lock-ins. Yeah, it's been a hard time, but writing about even harder times that Shackleton's lot put up with is something which brings it all back. So talk me through the chronology of Shackleton's expedition.

He sets off, and what was the first hard experiences he would have was it being iced in yeah he went over all the preparation not meticulously enough he was in a hurry he had people like Scott who might do things first before him still so he did rush things didn't take seven years to plan it at all it took just a year and a half. Nimrod expedition. And he failed at everything he wanted to do. And yet he was just the greatest. Really amazing how his effect on other human beings could make them cheerful when they were facing the ultimate suffering. Not just cold like us, but but cold and wet because they're doing the sea as well as the ice and in circumstances where death was almost certain not just for himself

but for his men and therefore his fault and he was determined not to lose a single life as it turned out he did lose three men in a horrible way, but he wasn't there at the time. That was part of one of his teams. And it is, as you read the book, you can picture the suffering, the hellish suffering day after day, night after night. And he put up with it. And more than important than that, he made the other 28 normal Brits put up with it too. So one nearly went insane.

But I have explained in the book, but I can't explain quickly, verbally, what a wonderful, uniquely bloke he was. When did the really hard stuff begin as they were going south towards the pole on the ship? Yeah, they planned to cross this huge thing bigger than India and America without any Tesco's en route. And he planned to have one ship on that side, South America, with him on it in the Weddell Sea below South America. And over on the other side, McMurdo Base, where the Scott lot and he had been before, and that they would drop off depots for him so that he, coming on the unexplored area from where his ship had dropped him off to the pole, if they were still alive at the pole, they might try and get down the Great Beardmore Glacier, the scene of horrors previously,

and to Mount Hope, that's why it's called Mount Hope, where these guys would have dropped food off for him all the way over the area where Scott had died, back to the coast below New Zealand. So from New Zealand, from South America, that was the plan. Critics say that if his ship hadn't sunk, so he never set out, and these guys dropping the depot had three of them horrible deaths because they didn't know that he never set out. So no one would benefit from their suffering. But that's the Aurora.

This ship on the other side, the Endurance, and Endurance is the right word for it. And his Shackleton family memory, you know, Endurance will conquer. And he got to Vaxell Island, where he would have set out to do this incredible first ever crossing of the Arctic. I'm not saying the Antarctic continent because of course they didn't know whether it really was a continent or lots of ice bits floating around. And this was an unknown factor, which always we found is a bit unnerving because you don't know what can happen in those areas.

So he and his ship sinks 40 miles from where they would have been dropped off and started the journey. And what happens then is that critics say that not only did he fail by sinking, and therefore his whole thing was to cross Antarctica, didn't even set foot on Antarctica. But what they say is they add criticism by saying that if he had landed, his expedition would have failed. And they give the mathematics of the food and the days that it would fail. We proved in the 1990s, using the top food stress expert, Dr. Michael Stroud in Britain, who persuaded me to go with him. He is Britain's expert on starvation, and he studies what happens to your body as you starve. And he would do an expedition which would confound the critics if we succeeded in doing it and not

dying. Even though we didn't have dogs, which are an additional help, and you can eat them, that's less food to carry, and they can eat each other. We didn't have that because nowadays PR with dogs dying and that wouldn't be good. We, without the dogs, but with the food. And Mike Stroud proved that in his day, Shackleton's day, people like you and me were actually mentally and physically tougher than we are now because of the software we've been brought up and what we've been eating all this time. And so he, Mike Stroud, was an expert. He'd studied all what the Germans doing starvation tests in Auschwitz, he'd seen

all that stuff, the Americans passed it to the Brits, to the Army Personnel Research Establishment. And the director of that establishment in Farnborough was Dr. Michael Stroud. And he and I managed to land on Berkner Island, right near where the ship sunk, and they would have set out from Shackleton, and got to the pole. And at the pole, we're in such a bad way. I'd lost 55 pounds despite eating 7,000 calories a day. And what we didn't know, there's at night when you're shivering, when you're asleep, you're using 2000 calories on top of the mathematics that you know about.

I mean, even Weight Watchers would not recommend it. We did succeed in getting to the pole. He determined to carry on, even though we were, I thought, dying. He managed to weigh us properly at the pole, found that we were starving even more than he had hoped. And he determined to write this article for The Lancet magazine on starvation. So we carried on and we just, just made it to Mount Hope, where they would have dropped off that depot.

And thereby proved that the critics were wrong and that if Shackleton had had the luck to land, and it's just luck in the Weddell Sea how the ice is behaving that year, he could definitely with the added dogs have done it. So failure all around but not necessarily if luck had been with him. So the ice closed around his ship. Did he abandon the ship immediately? No, he stayed with it. He stayed as long as it possibly could stay with it and with all the food and the shelter on board it, naturally.

And it could have floated in the right direction, could have floated towards somewhere safe on the known route of whaling ships and that sort of thing. And it didn't, which is bad luck. And therefore, he watched the ship crushed and sink, having luckily got the big three lifeboats off and anything which was vital off and then carried to an ice floe. But the ice floe started showing that it was sink. So he moved from ocean ice floe to patience. They call them different ice floes. And he tried getting to Paulette Island by hauling the lifeboats with everything on board. Couldn't do it. Even a

mile a day was difficult. So he had to accept there was one near mutiny by the carpenter, but he threatened to shoot him, which shut him up. And he was a great guy, Shackleton. Everything he did when things went wrong were what I would have done, definitely. And each time I read the very first Shackleton book, I thought, now what's he going to do? He's going to do this, turn over the page. Yeah, that's what he did. I would rate him as number one polar explorer of all time, even though he never succeeded in one of his plans. We listened to Dan's notes of history. We're talking about Sir Ronald Fiennes and Shackleton.

More after this. What did Tudor men like their women to look like? They should have broad shoulders, fleshy arms, fleshy legs and broad hips. What did 17th century Londoners think of coffee? A syrup of soot and the essence of old shoes. And what did executioners wear? A lot of these guys, they were clothes horses because it's a big public spectacle. All the eyes are on you.

I'm Professor Susanna Lipscomb and in my podcast, Not Just the Tudors, we talk about everything from monasteries to the Medici, sex to spying, wardrobes to witch trials. Not, in other words, just the Tudors, but most definitely also the Tudors. Subscribe from History Hit, wherever you get your podcasts. avoid the Poisoner's Cup in Renaissance Florence. Each week on Echoes of History, we uncover the epic stories that inspire Assassin's Creed. We're stepping into feudal Japan in our special series Chasing Shadows, where samurai warlords and shinobi spies teach us the tactics and skills needed not only to survive, but to conquer. Whether you're preparing for Assassin's Creed Shadows or fascinated by history and great stories, listen to Echoes of History, a Ubisoft podcast brought to you by History Hits.

There are new episodes every week. Having failed to get to the island, he then put the boats in the water and headed north. Yeah, he had to wait months living in tents and just near to the three boats. And what he wanted was for the edge of the ice flow where he knew that would be open water. But between open water and ice flows, you've got areas where there's both crashing against each other. So you put your boats in hoping to row and you find an ice flow comes and crushes your boat. So you had to be very, very careful, which he was. He never did anything without thinking apart from the meticulous requirement of the preparations for an expedition.

You're preparing always because the date you've got to arrive finished and ready in Antarctica is very little part of the year, which makes you rush. That's why we took seven years preparation. And after the fact that he eventually suffered terribly, all his men, in that period of half ice and half water. He managed just to make it through common sense and not being rash, although the desire to get off the floating months of ice was great with all of them, and they were thinking,

oh, Shackleton's not taking us in the water again. He should be, but he got it right. All the boats got away from the ice without sinking. He separated the people, so there was a good navigator, a good man manager on each one, and the difficult characters he took with him, so they couldn't cause discontent, including the one, the carpenter who started the mutiny.

He then, after that, which really caused a lot of suffering, people getting frostbite galore, people getting boils and blisters, people having to scrape the ice off because it made the ships heavy and sink. Just amazing. You have to read it to believe the suffering that they put through. And he kept a cheerful smile on his face as an example. And then the really difficult bit started, which was in those three boats getting to Elephant Island. You've got to read the book just for that. And when they got to Elephant Island, they knew that they were at least somewhere where there was a little bit of game, seals, penguins to eat and so on. So you're sailing across the Southern Ocean in open boats?

Absolutely. Bonkers. Quite, but they couldn't get out. They either die or they try something. And he chose the right way of doing it out of a nightmare situation. Towering seas. Yeah, I mean, a hundred foot wave on one particular case, probably caused by an iceberg falling nearby. But in the dark, he thought when he saw this huge sea line,

it was a horizon, good news, you know, or a nice cloud. And then suddenly, vroomf, how that didn't sink that ship. The way they bailed all of them to get the water out, just as it was in the process of sinking, in itself was thrilling. It would make the most amazing film. But how people would film it, God knows. And they do make it to Elephant Island? They made it to Elephant Island and soon realised that they would die there. So all that could do

was one of the boats, the most strong of the boats, the Caird, which you can go and see at Dunwich School, it's still there, because that's where he went to school. They made it, and big ships at that time sunk in the wave conditions on that journey from Elephant Island to South Georgia. I wouldn't be seen dead doing it. And reading Shackleton, I have to say, you know, what we did was nothing. Even what Scott did was nothing. But what Scott did was great. And so Shackleton makes it to South Georgia and then remarkably goes back. Oh, he rescues the people.

But it took him five big attempts to get a ship which could arrive and rescue them. It made him age visibly. Anybody would because he's got those men's death, slow for sure death on his conscience. And he was determined whatever happened to save every one of them. And so each time he failed, or the ship that he got was likely to get caught itself, with more people dying, he went back and back and back again. And the British government weren't helping him, or they were trying to, but it was in the middle of the Great War, about which Shackleton and his men knew nothing. Millions being killed in Europe.

And so they weren't very helpful. So he, by himself, then he went to different places. He went to Porto. I've got all the names written down. Wait a minute. South America and... Well, he found the one in Chile where lots of Brit expats were. And they gave money and they gave a ship, the Yelcho,

which nearly got so near to rescuing them. And it would have got stuck. So he went back again. It would have aged anyone overnight. So just imagine the joy when his fifth attempt got there and rescued all of them and they were still all alive after five months sitting waiting and brought them all back to south georgia and then to south america within a few months some were killed in the first world war but got him back and then he

realized that the other ship remember the aurora on the other side they were killed in the First World War, but got them back. And then he realized that the other ship, remember the Aurora on the other side, they were still in trouble. So instead of going back to his family and to Britain, he went all the way round to New Zealand by the slow method that existed in those days. And lots of ships wouldn't help because they were needed by their governments to fight the Germans. So he went round there and rescued that lot and then got back, wrote his books, thank God.

And he was lucky enough to have a wonderful photographer and movie maker called Hurley, Australian. And then he was able, with the movies, to lecture all over the world. And it was very, very good because he had the Blarney as well. How many times on your big expeditions and no doubt you think probably Shackleton as well how many times did you think what the hell am I doing here? Many many times when we got stuck in similar circumstances there were only two of us by then because Ollie the ex-beer salesman

There were only two of us by then because Ollie, the ex-beer salesman, had, after eight years working with us unpaid, had to leave for personal reasons, leaving Charlie, the South African, and myself and the base commander who moved around with radio stuff, Jenny, my wife, who Morse code to communicate with us. After reaching the North Pole with great difficulty, so we went from Greenwich down south, ship dropped us off in Antarctica, couple of years later picks us up having done the first crossing of Antarctica,

manages to get through the ice, only two of them dead, take us up the other side of the world via the west of North America, up to where the Bering Straits are between Russia and America, up the Yukon River 3,000 miles in two rubber boats, and then abandon the boats and take an open boat to try to do the first open boat journey ever

through the Northwest Passage, 3,500 miles, Charlie and myself. And that had been done in three years. That's why Jenny planned that it might take two extra years at Eskimo settlements. All the way through the Northwest Passage, first time done in an open boat, our boat freezes in. So we, like Shackleton, crossing the mountains on his last thing.

But we had 180 miles to do on snowshoes, me and Charlie, to do that bit after the suffering in the Northwest Passage. And we then get to the last known living position in the world where we spend another eight months waiting for summer to come. And then we do the 700 miles. It's 500 miles in a straight line, but you're not straight line

because of the open water and the icebergs. Make it to the pole, the first people, Charlie and I, to reach both poles the hard way by moving on foot. And at the pole, we were behind schedule. From then on, we had to move on ice, which was going where it wanted, not us, on ice flows like he'd done down south, except worse because of the movement there was much greater. And we despaired and we thought we've wasted 20 years of our life, me and Ginny, and failing at the last hurdle.

And the committee, Sir Vivian Fuchs and the SAS and everyone else in London, the committee in London sent a radio message to Ginny, whilst the ice was landable on by a ski plane, which it would be only for another week, get it out there and remove Ran and Charlie. We've almost done it. We know the sponsors won't mind. We were going to do it complete. Flying one meter would have failed the whole thing.

So Ginny, when she heard this message, it was the only message she never heard, like Nelson with his binos. And she didn't get the message. And we made it, and the ship, amazing guys, Anton Baring and the people on the ship, 15 days stuck in the ice, holed the craft. They landed at the front damaged bit, used oxyacetylene, and then they tried again, and they got to 22 miles away

from us on our ice floe, north of Greenland, over towards Soviet Union. And we had canoes with skis on very, very light. Ginni had designed them five years earlier, cases happened. And we were able to get to the ship, which was stuck. And that moment, after eight months seeing ice and nothing else, seeing in the far distance two matchsticks, our ships' masts, was the best moment of one's life. But if that had gone wrong for another week, we would have wasted 20 years on one project. Would you have wasted it, though? I mean, Shackleton didn't waste his shot, did he?

He's one of the most famous and, well, you say he's the greatest polar explorer. You still have achieved everything you've achieved, even if you hadn't made that rendezvous with the ship. Yeah, that's sort of thinking about what might have been, and I'm never good at wasting time on hypothesis sort of thing. But if we hadn't succeeded, we would have been left for the rest of our life with knowing that an expedition of that nature, that difficulty for so long, the entire Earth with problems left, right, and center. I mean, don't even talk about the Sahara and the jungles of the Ivory Coast where we had

problems. Anything that gets in the way of that ocean and ice, the first obstacle was France. So the ship then on that meridian drops three Land Rovers and the beer salesman in one, Ginny and me in the other, and Charlie in the other, have to go through France and Spain, where the ship picks us up and takes us out to the next obstacle, which is Africa, drops us off in Algiers. Ship at that time was only able to work in reverse, which is embarrassing, the reverse side of Algiers port. So we said goodbye, going the Land Rovers through the Sahara on that journey, down into

the Ivory Coast jungles, all the time doing scientific work of various sorts, some of it finding new types of bat and skink and all that for the British Museum. If you go to the Natural History Museum, you've got things which we found, new types of scorpion and so on. From the expeditions, we've raised 19.8 million so far from the sponsors involved with the different expeditions. So there are side issues like science and charity. What is your next expedition or most recent one? Land a Viking longship on island shores,

scramble over the dunes of ancient Egypt and avoid the Poisoner's Cup in Renaissance Florence. Each week on Echoes of History, we uncover the epic stories that inspire Assassin's Creed. We're stepping into feudal Japan in our special series, Chasing Shadows, where samurai warlords and shinobi spies teach us the tactics and skills needed not only to survive, but to conquer.

Whether you're preparing for Assassin's Creed Shadows or fascinated by history and great stories, listen to Echoes of History, a Ubisoft podcast brought to you by History Hits. There are new episodes every week. The most recent one was trying to do what Mike and I broke the world record of crossing the continent with nothing, no help from any source. We wanted to do that in winter, but the Foreign Office, Polar Desk, wouldn't allow it. So we had to do what the British Antarctic Survey do, because they're allowed near their

base in winter, which is to have a huge list, including at all times access to an operating theatre for appendix. An operating theatre. Mike and I towing heavy sledges. We'd have to have on the list enough food for 18 months, enough fuel for 18 months. Ridiculous. So rather than say, no, this is just ridiculous, Mike said, well, why don't we take an operating theater and everything?

All we need is to get two 25-ton caterpillars with tracks, which would be difficult going up because of crevasses and down the other side because of crevasses, but not in the middle where there are no crevasses or hardly any. And we will get sponsors to make fuel sledges, 14 of them it worked out at, big heavy sledges. And we would tow them all the way across and you and I will follow them with skis and sledges like we normally do. And that way, two fingers to the Foreign Office. So that was what planned. We got right up the difficult bit.

The kit worked wonderfully. Mike and I did it on skis and that. And got to the top and had champagne. But we were doing it before winter started. The solstice was the day you start. At that point, I got very bad frostbite. Mike had hernias and stuff. And we thought, well, why not leave the British Antarctic Survey people we'd recruited, like

a doctor, we had to have a BAS doctor, and a rather a base commander type. So we left them to do all the scientific work, which they did. They stayed up there throughout the entire year until the next year they could come back down again. And I've forgotten the name of that expedition, but that failed over 52 years. 40% of the records we tried to break, we failed. How many injuries are you carrying?

Well, I have to cut my lovely shoes because of the rebuilt small toe. Don't want any pressure on it. They took away four inches from here and built a new toe on the end of that foot. So even when I go to Harvey and Hudson for lovely black army shoes, I have to slit them with a knife, which is a shame. Fingers. You've lost five fingers? The thumb, one, two, three, four fingers. Yeah, the only one they did badly was that one. And that was partly my fault because when I took the most stuff off with

a fret saw and a black and decker workbench to hold them steady, I made a mistake on that one, and a Black & Decker workbench to hold them steady. I made a mistake on that one, which the surgeon, who was quite jealous of my early efforts, pointed out was a mistake. But the physio thought we'd done a good job, me and Ginny. Only did it because I was getting very irritable by touching the mummified bits whenever you touched anything. And they won't operate for five months, even now,

even if you have burns or frostbitten fingers. Five months after the trauma to allow the semi burnt bits at the end of the dead bit before the live bit that is going to become the ends of the new shortened fingers that has to be recovered. Anything else? Any other injuries? Don't think so. That's plenty. Got a bad memory. When will you stop? When I stop, I will make sure the Norwegians don't know about it, either through you, Dan, or anyone else.

Are you public enemy number one in Norway? Erling Kage and Borge Auslund, and before them, Ragnar Thorskjöld. And in the 70s, the first one, Ragnar, Charlie Burton, the South African, he was a bit crude, I have to say, dear Charlie, bless his soul. And he couldn't pronounce Ragnar Þorskjell, but we would call him Þorskjell. And somehow or other, this leaked out to the Norwegian press and their main Western Norway newspaper Bergen's Tidender. And we were, Charlie and I, on our way to break the world record for traveling from land towards the pole back in the 70s.

And she in Morse code read out the front pages of Bergen's Tidender. They were sitting in this tent listening. And what it said was, yesterday, the Brits, Fiennes and Burton, broke the existing world record towards the Pole, but our boys under Ragnar are catching them up, which was true. And the Brits have taken a prostitute on their sledge, which is totally untrue. And we lost two major sponsors in the UK because there was a thing in those days called the News of the World, and it elaborated the prostitute thing.

And we lost the two sponsors. And I have to say, relations never really recovered. I'll finish with the questions for the people. My last question to you is, what is the one attribute that you think Shackleton had that you have got that has kept you alive for these decades? I think realism mixed with optimism. So there's three alternatives that you can go forward with, pessimism, optimism and realism. optimism and realism. And I think both of us took the middle course and didn't worry about taking luck as it comes. A lot of people nowadays, when they've done something because they've been

damn lucky, they won't talk about it because it's not part of their heroism. It's using an outside source. Are you alive today because of luck or because of skill and determination? outside source. Are you alive today because of luck or because of skill and determination? Well, bearing in mind the ability to scare the life out of anyone in her minivan, my late wife, I think I'm lucky to be alive. Purely because of driving around. Yeah. Yeah. So luck. Right, I've got some questions here from the audience. We're very excited that I'm meeting you. There's a chance that the endurance might be found.

What are you looking forward to learning? Do you think it will tell us anything about the expedition that we don't know? They failed with the latest ability last year when they went to look. Everyone from Basque and Julian Dardswell and everyone. But if they find it, will we learn anything from the wreck? No, no, nothing at all. They knew when they set out that every year the ice behaved differently. They might be lucky, they might not be lucky. Same happened to Scott. Is there any great moment of exploration that you wish you had been there for that one? I wouldn't want one where I know they suffered horribly. So that cancels out Scott and Shackleton and Mawson.

I would love to be able to get rid of vertigo and do what these climbers who climb without ropes can do. I can't even take leaves out of the gutter at home. I send my wife up and hold the ladder at the bottom. Of all the explorers through history, we can go all the way back if you like to the ancient world, who would you like to share a tent with? Because I know having spent many, many, many nights sharing a tent with him, often hating

him, I would prefer Mike Stroud. You know, better the devil you know. Are there any explorers that deserve more credit that we've forgotten to remember their achievements in history? In Australia, Douglas Mawson, who is another guy who had the most horrific polar journeys, often by himself, I think he's slightly out there under-recognised, but in our particular bunch, some of the people who were with Scott and Shackleton rate in the same way, but they don't have the added horror of being the leader responsible. What's the one simple survival technique that we all should know? Take the right equipment, spend your time meticulously planning for the worst,

take the right equipment, spend your time meticulously planning for the worst. And when you're Scott, you're going into an area about which nothing is known. So you cannot know what the best equipment is to take. And on our expedition, we had, as I say, to use equipment that Shackleton and Scott had used. It wasn't because we were trying to be old-fashioned or anything, you know, neglecting modern advances, but it showed us that if you had known, if Scott and they had known, they would have taken what we were able to get in the 90s, by which time there were polar orbiting satellites. What is the most surprising survival technique that you've had to use in your long career? Surprising survival technique would have been using, not in the 70s, but in the 90s, getting

British Aerospace to make the thing for finding the sun. Because we, to do the first journey through the Northwest Passage, were traveling in the summertime when it's fog and the north polar magnetic makes it impossible to use a magnetic compass when you can't see the sun, which is the only other way of knowing where the direction is. So we had to invent and thought of this four years before a machine that we could hold up and find out where the sun was through reflection and refraction. So we went to British Aerospace in Stevenage and got a thing called the Zoomski, named after the apprentice who invented it, the Zoomski machine. And that managed to get us to be the first boat through the Northwest Passage during the summer fog season.

And that saved us at least one year, if not two years. Would you like to be on the Mars expedition, somebody asks? No. Why not? Well, because I'd be wasting my time. They only take people who can pass mathematics and all that sort of funny stuff. Never mind learning Russian. Just the idea of going to Mars?

Doesn't appeal at all, for any reason at all. You sit and do what you're told. You like to be unsupported? I like to be the boss, or one of the bosses. Last couple of questions here. If you could be a fly on the wall of a particular moment in history, what would that moment be? Including my history?

Any history stretching back the dawn of time. that moment be? Including my history? Any history stretching back the dawn of time. I'd like to know for a fact that Jesus existed. Yeah, and I would also like to have a weapon and have Stalin and Mao in my sights. Which part of history would you least like to see? Absolutely no interest at all. I hated what they did in the Roman amphitheatres. Sheer cruelty. The nearest thing today is hunting animals for trophy hunting to stick up on your wall and say how clever you were and to get them where the animals,

which happens in South Africa at the moment, are captivated, so they can't escape anyway. If you hadn't been an explorer, what job would you have had? I would have done what I wanted to do, which is to be commanding officer of the Royal Scots Graze. I would have died happy. Will you die happy now? I will always have the regret. So all of these expeditions you've undertaken... They were a poor second best. Yeah, I mean, I was 24 when I gave it up. That's quite an important part of your thinking life.

Ran Fiennes, thank you very much. Dan, thank you very much. Go and buy the book, everyone. What is the book called? Shackleton. Perfect title. Go and buy it. it's out now thanks thanks folks you've been in the wrong episode congratulations well done you

i hope you're not fast asleep. If you did fancy supporting everything we do at History Hit, we'd love it if you would go and wherever you get these pods, give it a little rating, five stars or its equivalent. A review would be great. Thank you very much indeed.

That really does make a huge difference. It's one of the funny things the algorithm loves to take into account. So please don't ever do that. It can seem like a small thing, but actually it's kind of a big deal for us. So I really appreciate it. See you next time. you