Best relationship?

I have a wonderful wife, Hildegard Neil, who was Cleopatra to Charlton Heston’s Mark Antony. We live in a cottage with a few acres, full of animals – ponies, horses, dogs and cats. It’s a bit like Noah’s Ark.

Best thing about exploring?

Fifty per cent of my life is acting, and the other 50 per cent is exploring. I can go all over the world – the North Pole, South America or Everest – and everywhere I go, people want me to shout “Gordon’s alive!”

Best play?

Dorothy L Sayers was one of the greatest playwrights of the British golden age of crime fiction. Busman’s Honeymoon is her masterpiece. Halfway through, the vicar and the chimney sweep blow up half the set – and the murder method itself remains the most ingenious ever devised.

Worst childhood memory?

My dad was gassed three times and managed to survive. His legs were crushed when I was 14, and it was the worst day of my life. I was school captain of football and cricket and enjoying drama and woodwork, but I had to leave school. It broke my heart. The only job I could get was as an undertaker’s assistant making coffins, and I did my amateur dramatics at night.

Worst encounter?

I was the oldest man to trek to the North Pole on foot when I was 68. It was really severe, 70 degrees below zero with a dangerous wind chill. Suddenly, the tent ripped and there was a great polar bear sticking his head in. It could have teared us apart in seconds. No animal likes to be hit on the nose – not that I go around hurting animals, I love animals – but I hit the bear right on its nose and it ran off.

Worst thing about politics?

Ninety-nine per cent of politicians are crap. They believe their own publicity and almost want to be film stars. It’s a modern disease. They think, “Yes, yes, I’ll do anything as long as I’m prime minister. Let me be famous, I’ll do anything as long as I’m foreign secretary, I’ll do anything.” They need to calm down and find good teachers. They’re incapable leaders, immature, and they need to grow up. But we mustn’t worry – they’ll get there.