What do you take away from a talk given by someone officially recognised as “the world’s greatest living explorer”? Last week I listened to Sir Ranulph Twistleton-Wykeham-Fiennes with a growing sense of awe – that he was alive to tell his tale!
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| Sir Ranulph Fiennes, The world's greatest living explorer |
About 300 people had gathered to listen to the 3rd Baronet of Banbury tell his story of “39 years of package holidays” spent working with a team of 52 in 9 countries. They’d been through thick and thin together during that time, despite some lousy T&C’s, “We never pay anyone anything at anytime,” noted Sir Ranulph. “We keep ahead of our known international rivals by completing the remaining global physical goals, such as crossing the Antarctic continent without any support.”
I have to admit that I’d arrived at Birmingham's International Conference Centre (ICC) event organised by the Birmingham City University Business School on “Leadership, Challenge and Perseverance in the face of adversity” with perhaps more than a small part of me thinking I was about to listen to somebody who’d embarked on some fairly barmy travels to some pretty peculiar places for no very good reasons...
To get us into ‘the zone’ Sir Ranulph helpfully set the scene – on food deprivation - there were “no Tescos en route”; on physical trials - “take a bath outside into your garden and put 3 of your fattest 6’ plus friends in and tow this for 3000 miles over sand dunes. ” Both options entirely inconceivable in my mind – but I was about to discover this was just a ‘starter for ten’.
So what kind of person embarks on these ventures? Well, if you believe Sir Ranulph’s telling of it – an unqualified, prank-loving scallywag who’s never really grown up. But whilst amusing this clearly belies the steely reserves driving this tenacious, shrewd, generous-spirited character (I estimate he and his team have raised over £15m for various charities), who’s cheated death more times than I’ve cared to contemplate it.
Sir Ranulph - The Early Years
Sir Ranulph - The Early Years
He told us he was born in Windsor (Wikipedia cites Glasgow) during the War soon after the death of his father, Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Ranulph Twisleton-Wykeham-Fiennes, who was killed in action at Monte Cassino in 1944. He was just one when his mother moved the family to South Africa, “where the education was poor”. But whilst “mother had no money,” the family were comforted in the knowledge they would at least have a good education at Winchester College, as it had been started by a Fiennes and had a policy to give anyone of that name a place free of charge.
However when the wider clan “started to breed like rabbits – mostly actors” Winchester changed their tune, applying an entrance exam and requiring top grades, so Ranulph was sent to the only school open to someone of his "low academic attainment" – Eton College. There they enjoyed a regime that included boxing and ‘stakeopholy’ (or climbing tall complexes to annoy the masters). Illuminating as this was – with Sir Ranulph exhibiting an early penchant for sticking stakes into unusual places... it did not guarantee the A-Levels required to become a Commanding Officer of the Royal Scot’s Greys Cavalry Regiment – his long held ambition.
Sir Ranulph’s mother, resourceful as ever, located an institution in Brighton famous for steering all its students successfully through their A-Levels. He ruefully admits to breaking their record because, as he puts it, “the mini-skirt era was at its peak”.
As Sandhurst was no longer on the cards, he went to the Mons Officer Cadet School in Aldershot, mastering the art of “digging holes in straight lines.” That was at the height of the Cold War so he was sent to drive a tank in Germany – “learning to retreat from the German border, not great for the CV,” he admits, when he saw an ad for the SAS and found himself in Hereford with 190 soldiers, 30 officers, and no one else from a cavalry regiment – and became known as the ‘donkey walloper’.
SAS and Army Years
SAS and Army Years
Training, SAS fashion, followed – swimming across local rivers with no clothes on at night and a mission to steal £200k from a local bank. Sir Ranulph recounts approaching the local Hereford Barclays bank manager mid-morning, having slept in after the ardours of naked river-swimming and the like, describing him as “a little naive”. Having explained that he needed somewhere safe to deposit the family silver, requiring some understanding of the electronic security systems to feel sure his family heirloom was safe, he later set off, security plans in hand, for dinner. However, he accidentally left the same plans at a local Italian joint in London following an enjoyable meal - leading to an early brush with the law.
Sometime later he was thrown out of the SAS following a call from an old Etonian classmate enticing him to take part on a ‘mercy mission’ to Castle Combe, one of the prettiest villages in England, as the production crew on the film ‘Doctor Doolittle’ had erected an ugly concrete dam outside the village “regarded as something of an eyesore by the locals and needing to be blown up”. A six month stint in HM Prison Chippenham followed, then it was back to the army and German border patrols.
Getting bored of this and frustrated by his waning career prospects Sir Ranulph decided to join the Sultan of Oman’s army during the Dhofar rebellion (1962-75) learning his early Arabic in Beaconsfield in preparation for a 3 year stint – “a dialect not prevalent in the desert”. During this time Sir Ranulph became the first person to take photographs of and measure insects in this part of the world for the Natural History Museum, even having a centipede, the ‘Fiennes’, named after him. Daily hazards included the deadly Eichis Viper and equally deadly Soviet anti-personnel mines. He commanded the Reconnaissance Platoon of the Muscat Regiment, with 6 Land Rovers at their disposal, patrolling a border which “leaked like a sieve”. He led several raids deep into rebel-held territory on the Djebel Dhofar and was decorated for bravery by the Sultanate.Over the three years of active service in Oman he became acquainted with the Eastern Makara tribes, apparently descended from the Queen of Sheeba, living in the only place where Frankincense trees grow, resulting in the opening of ancient trade routes between Oman through Arabia and on to Israel when this business was at its height.
However, during the Dhofar Rebellion these nomadic tribes were wholly dependent on camel milk, grazing and living in rough tents, with Sir Ranulph’s pictures demonstrating the extreme poverty of their existence, both then and today. They told tales of a lost City in the desert and Sir Ranulph started to wonder if this could be the city referred to in the Bible as ‘Sodom’, and in the Qur’an as ‘Iram of the Pillars’, or even the ‘Atlantis of the Sands’, spoken of by T E Lawrence. He spent the next 26 years scouring the desert for it, eventually finding that all the time it had been a few hundred meters from his desert base whilst on duty in Oman.
Leading Expeditions - as a Profession
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| Sir Ranulph Fiennes, Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know |
In the mid ‘70’s “fashion changed quickly in which expeditions to do”, according to Sir Ranulph’s “boss”, his literary agent, with Americans going off hot expeditions, so he “needed to go Polar”.
Transglobe Expedition 1979-1982
Sir Ranulph recognised they had to be ambitious and do the first journey round the world through both poles, “there have been far more people on the moon than have done this trip round the world.” Apparently it was his late wife, Ginny, who came up with the idea of travelling along the Greenwich meridian to avoid crossing USSR territory as the route for their Transglobe Expedition (1979-82).
The Antarctic had never been crossed from one side to the other by the same expedition and in the Arctic only Wally Herbert had done the 2000 mile crossing. The Americans were “desperate to get to both poles”. His team, who gave up paying jobs for 3 years, covered 9 countries to oversee the 52,000 mile journey, finding 1900 sponsors including a ship, with the ‘land group’ or expedition team including Sir Ranulph and two others - Ollie Shepherd and Charlie Burton, selected from amongst thousands of applicants.
"Ollie Shepherd had been a beer salesman in London for nine years, and Charlie Burton in the butchers' business in London and South Africa," Fiennes said in an interview for the London Business Forum, adding, "they had the right characters" - you cannot teach people to change their character as if you were teaching them a new skill.
Having arrived in the Antarctic they had to wait in the dark along the ‘hinge zone’ in a paper house designed by Ginny to withstand the minus 30 degree centigrade temperatures and 40 mph winds. In fact they had to endure minus 122 degree centigrade windchill and when the sun went down it was minus 68 degrees. Cooking with petrol in the paper house was something of a challenge, but they were able to map Antarctica for the first time as the early satellites were only launched in 1996. "Ollie Shepherd had been a beer salesman in London for nine years, and Charlie Burton in the butchers' business in London and South Africa," Fiennes said in an interview for the London Business Forum, adding, "they had the right characters" - you cannot teach people to change their character as if you were teaching them a new skill.
They hauled 120 lb tents (today they weigh 3lbs) designed by the “greatest Polar explorer, Captain Scott,” coping with katabatic winds which could go from 0-130 mph in 3 minutes, and passing an active volcano along the way - the site of a plane crash where all 168 people on board had been killed just a short time previously. On arrival at the Pacific Coast their ship took them onto New Zealand, Australia and into the Baring Straits where Ollie Shepherd left them “to save his marriage, after 8 years without being paid”.
Travelling ‘up’ the globe they went through the North West Passage on a 16’ boat with Burton at the helm, something no one else had previously managed, waiting on the most northerly island at the mouth of the Yukon for 2 months. A report for Transglobe Expedition notes Burton was particularly struck by the enormous mosquitoes, which he described as like "flying Jack Russells".
When the season changed Charlie and Sir Ranulph got going. Charlie got fungus in his feet but they kept going. When he started skiing "the fungus fell off the bottom of his feet, leaving no skin. His language got bad and he developed hemorrhoids and his language got worse. One day he fell over and cracked his head on a rock, his eyes filling up with blood... and he started to whinge a bit then..." However, Fiennes has also described Burton, now deceased, as “the toughest guy I ever met”.
When the season changed Charlie and Sir Ranulph got going. Charlie got fungus in his feet but they kept going. When he started skiing "the fungus fell off the bottom of his feet, leaving no skin. His language got bad and he developed hemorrhoids and his language got worse. One day he fell over and cracked his head on a rock, his eyes filling up with blood... and he started to whinge a bit then..." However, Fiennes has also described Burton, now deceased, as “the toughest guy I ever met”.
In another episode also recounted by Transglobe Expedition, “Burton clutched on to Fiennes's snowmobile with frozen hands as it sank into open seawater while his companion rescued some vital pieces of equipment. Since much of their protective clothing was lost, they were driven to sharing a sleeping bag for 24 hours until a new snowmobile was hazardously delivered by a Swiss charter pilot.”
During one radio transmission Burton and Fiennes heard that Britain was at war but did not catch with which country as their solar panels only allowed a couple of minutes of listening at any one time. They debated which country they might be at war with for the next five days never guessing that Britain was actually at war with Argentina.
Quest to Find the Lost City of Ubar
According to an interview with Linda Chapman, October 2001, Sir Ranulph explains the moments leading up to the discovery of the lost city saying to Zarins, “Well, there's some rubble about 300 meters from where we’re based, in the desert. It's rubble rather than flat ground and he said: All right, we'll get some practice for the team. And he started and within three or four days, about nine inches down, he'd unearthed a two-and-a-half-thousand year-old chess set. And within six weeks, I think, he'd found the outline of the city wall. Once you've found the outline it gets quicker." It was at that time, "the biggest active excavation works in Arabia. But it took 26 years to locate it and archeologists have tried to find it before without success: since the 50s.”
Unsupported Crossing of the Antarctic
In the mid 1990’s they heard that the Norwegians were about to cross the Antarctic without any support. Shackleton’s plan had involved bags being dropped off at the South Pole and Sir Edmund Hilary and Dr Fuchs had relied on a pincer plan. Sir Ranulph knew, as he had "done the maths" that an unsupported expedition was effectively an 'impossible task' – you simply could not carry all your kit and enough food, but, his professionalism demanded a response - if your rivals were about to do something then you had better get on and start competing.
He was joined on this expedition by Dr Mike Stroud with each man hauling 490lb for 16 miles daily for over 90 days covering over 1400 miles and up to 12,000’ high altitudes. They burned 8,500 calories a day consuming 5,000 calories daily leaving a 3,500 deficit. They wore ventile cotton made in Lancashire and along the way suffered horribly with frostbite and gangrene with Sir Ranulph showing some particularly vivid pictures to illustrate, negotiating up to 7000 crevasses en route.
"You can't wear the 'soft boots' that might normally be worn on a non polar expedition, you have to wear plastic ski boots which are quite rigid," he said, explaining that he and Stroud also wore special skis designed for polar ice and snow conditions. However, these heavy boots also damaged their toes which hurt until they were numbed by the cold. "After just 10 days you start getting gangrene."
Hire the Character and understand Motivation
Hire the Character and understand Motivation
If you're stuck with the wrong person in Antarctica then you cannot sack them, he points out. He claims it was the trust between him and Mike Stroud that ultimately proved to be unbreakable, allowing them to complete their mission. “Hire someone on the basis of their character and if you notice a nasty flaw in their character sack them immediately – with no sideways promotion,” he add, "I see this as the answer to everything."
When recruiting anyone, he has said speaking to the London Business Forum and echoing these thoughts in Birmingham, "I wouldn't use a complex system of giving them one out of 10 on different characteristics, I would just look for self-motivation, because how a person is motivated is the basis for their future behaviour and for their organisation of their exploration group. Select the right personnel and you can be confident of achieving most things... If you start with the organisation it's amazing how apparent obstacles will fall away."
Mike Stroud had negotiated a contract with The Lancet to conduct on-going tests on the effects of starvation on the human body and they found that they were” starving more quickly than we had dared to hope”, having burnt off all their fat they were starting to cannibalise muscle tissue. Their hands blistered with the freezing blisters dropping off to leave raw exposed wounds. Stroud was taking blood specimens from Fiennes for various universities around the world every five days making Fiennes collect his own urine after drinking a special fluid every fortnight. "I began to 'hate' Mike," Sir Ranulph says, explaining that the urine collection was especially difficult because any appendage exposed outside the tent for more than 48 seconds would suffer permanent damage. "I'm not normally vindictive but, in the tent one night... I noticed that his was much more blistered and damaged than mine, which made me very happy at that time," he told the London Business Forum in May 2007.
Undeterred by frostbite and gangrene they continued, descending the Mount Beardmore glacier with Sir Ranulph explaining how they felt, “Every day you didn’t want to be the one who was first to stop. Every day I hoped that the other man would break a leg or something so that we had to stop. Mike had devised a diet of 62% fat with ghee butter covering most of what we ate. For several weeks Mike would pick out a couple of flapjacks, handing one to me, and it would always seem that mine was the smaller, so I suggested to him that I choose my own flapjack. But after awhile even when I chose my own it still seemed smaller than his.” Nonetheless they made it to the Pacific completing the longest unsupported Polar journey in history and, by the way, raising £4.2m for the building of the UK’s first Multiple Sclerosis Centre in Cambridge.
Marathons and Motivation
An hour cannot really do justice to the exploits of Sir Ranulph Fiennes. We hardly heard about his running seven marathons in seven days on seven continents when he teamed up with Mike Stroud once more, despite having undergone a double heart bypass operation just four months before, to carry out the extraordinary feat of completing the Land Rover 7x7x7 for the British Heart Foundation. "In retrospect I wouldn't have done it. I wouldn't do it again. It was Mike Stroud's idea", he’s been quoted as saying. Their route took them to Patagonia, the Falklands, Australia, Singapore, London, Cairo and New York.
So what motivates the man: “Some people are motivated by their religion; I was raised Church of England but this wasn’t enough. My dad and my granddad were my heroes and motivated me. I didn’t ever want to let them down.” So has this 66 year old, like many others his age, decided it’s time to hang up his stakes once and for all? Has he heck, he’s working on his next trip which is still too secret to divulge – for the time being, at least.
Links
http://januarymagazine.com/profiles/rfiennes.html
http://www.londonbusinessforum.com/events/worlds_greatest_living_explorer
http://www.transglobe-expedition.org/page/update
Birmingham Post Business Blog http://blogs.birminghampost.net/business/2010/11/sir-ranulph-fiennes---leadersh.html
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