Legendary explorer Sir Ranulph Fiennes has revealed how trying to entertain “bored Scotsmen” launched his extraordinary career.
Fiennes, who has completed record-breaking missions to both poles and Mount Everest and conquered the north face of the Eiger, said his first foray into adventure training was in the Army when he was trying to keep fed-up Scots squaddies from beating each other up.
The former Royal Scots Greys officer said he was kept busy by his men as they sat in Germany awaiting the onslaught of the Red Army during the Cold War.
He also revealed that he was booted out of the SAS for playing with explosives.
Sir Ranulph said: “My father was killed four months after I was born, commanding the Royal Scots Greys near Naples.
“He had been wounded five times commanding that tank regiment, including at El Alamein and later the landing at Salerno at the bottom of Italy.
“He trod on a mine before they freed Naples.
“I had been brought up on stories about my dad in the Army and the only thing I wanted to do, never mind expeditions, was to do what he had done and become the colonel of The Royal Scots Greys cavalry regiment.
“By that time, we were of course in 70-ton Conqueror tanks in the British Army on the Rhine, and waiting for the Soviet army to attack, and they never did.
“So Scotsmen got bored and started beating each other up instead and our job as officers was to keep them from doing that by taking them adventure training.
“So I became the bloke in charge of the canoe team going up all of the European rivers like the Loire, the Rhone and the Rhine and the Vaser – great to escape from tank training on the ranges and in winter time there was skiing with the team.”
The former Army officer, 76, who has crossed the Antarctic unsupported, was named the world’s greatest living explorer by the Guinness Book Of World Records in 2004.
Explaining his SAS gaffe, he added: “I signed on to try and get into the SAS as I heard they had an interesting time of it.
“I went for demolition as my speciality and I got involved with blowing up civilian property with Army explosives, which was not popular at that time and so I got thrown out.”
