After sitting and watching in amazement about a person who I’ve watched on TOP GEAR
I had to post this to let others know who is being talked about…
Sir Ranulph Twisleton-Wykeham-Fiennes, 3rd Baronet OBE (born 7 March 1944), usually known simply as Ranulph (Ran) Fiennes, is an English adventurer and holder of several endurance records. He was the first man to visit both the north and south poles by land and the first man to completely cross the Antarctic on foot.
Fiennes was born in England shortly after the death of his father, Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Ranulph Twisleton-Wykeham-Fiennes, who was killed in action in the Second World War at Monte Cassino in 1943. Fiennes inherited his father's baronetcy, becoming the 3rd Baronet at his birth. Fiennes is the third cousin of Hollywood film actors Joseph and Ralph Fiennes, and is a distant cousin of Britain's royal family.
After the war his mother moved the family to South Africa where he remained until he was 12. Ranulph then returned to be educated at Eton, after which he joined the British Army.
Adventurer
Since the 1960s Fiennes has been an adventurer. He led expeditions up the White Nile on a hovercraft in 1969 and on Norway's Jostedalsbreen Glacier in 1970. Perhaps his most famous trek was the Transglobe Expedition he undertook from 1979 until 1982. Fiennes, Oliver Shepard and Charles Burton journeyed around the world on its polar axis using surface transport only, covering 52,000 miles and becoming the first people to have visited both poles by land.
In 1992 Fiennes led an expedition that discovered the lost city of Ubar in Oman. The following year he joined nutrition specialist Mike Stroud in an attempt to become the first to cross Antarctica unaided. Having crossed the continent in 90 days, they were forced to call for a pick-up on the Ross Ice Shelf, frostbitten and starving, on day 95.
In 2000, he attempted to walk solo and unsupported to the North Pole. The expedition failed when his sleds fell through weak ice and Fiennes was forced to pull them out by hand. He sustained severe frostbite to the tips of all the fingers on his left hand, forcing him to abandon the attempt. On returning home, his surgeon insisted the necrotic fingertips be retained for several months (to allow regrowth of the remaining healthy tissue) before amputation. Impatient at the pain the dying fingertips caused, Fiennes removed them himself (in his garden shed) with a fretsaw.
Despite suffering from a heart attack and undergoing a double heart bypass operation just four months before, Fiennes joined Stroud again in 2003 to carry out the extraordinary feat of completing seven marathons in seven days on seven continents in the Land Rover 7x7x7 Challenge for the British Heart Foundation. Their route:
26th October - Race 1: Patagonia, South America
27th October - Race 2: Falkland Islands, "Antarctica"
28th October - Race 3: Sydney, Australia
29th October - Race 4: Singapore, Asia
30th October - Race 5: London, Europe
31st October - Race 6: Cairo, Africa
1st November - Race 7: New York, North America
Originally Fiennes had planned to run the first marathon on King George Island, Antarctica. The second marathon would then have taken place in Santiago, Chile. However, bad weather and aeroplane engine trouble caused him to change his plans, running the South American segment in southern Patagonia first and then hopping to the Falklands as a substitute for the Antarctic leg.
Speaking after the event, Fiennes said the Singapore marathon had been by far the most difficult because of high humidity and pollution. He also said his cardiac surgeon had approved the marathons, providing his heart-rate did not exceed a 130 beats per minute; Fiennes later confessed to having forgotten to pack his heart-rate monitor, and as such does not know how fast his heart was beating.
Fiennes reached 28,500ft in a 2005 attempt to climb Everest. He has joined the Victoria Falls Expedition, celebrating the 150th Anniversary of David Livingstone's discovery of Victoria Falls (this expedition started on 2 November, and originally took David Livingstone four years).
In March 2007, despite a morbid, lifelong fear of heights, Fiennes undertook a personal challenge to climb the Eiger by its much-feared North Face, with sponsorship totaling £1.5 million to be paid to the Marie Curie Cancer Care Delivering Choice Programme.
Awards and Recognition
In 1970, while serving with the Omani Army, Fiennes received the Sultan's Bravery Medal. In 1983 he was awarded an honorary doctorate by Loughborough University, and later received the Royal Geographical Society's Founders Medal. In 2007, he was awarded an honorary Doctor of Science degree at the University of Abertay Dundee.
Fiennes was appointed OBE in 1993 "for human Endeavour and for charitable services" — his expeditions have raised £5 million for good causes. In 1995 he was awarded the Polar Medal with bar, having visited both poles.
In a 2007 Top Gear special, the presenters traveled to the Magnetic North Pole in a Toyota Hilux. Sir Ranulph was called in to speak with the presenters after their constant joking and horseplay during their cold weather training. As a former guest on the show who was familiar with their penchant for tomfoolery, Fiennes bluntly informed them of the grave dangers of polar expeditions, showing pictures of his own frostbite injuries and presenting what remained of his left hand. Sir Ranulph was given recognition by having his name placed before every surname in the closing credits: "Sir Ranulph Clarkson, Sir Ranulph Hammond, and Sir Ranulph May"...
Personal life
Fiennes married his childhood sweetheart Virginia Pepper ("Ginny") on September 9, 1970. The couple moved to a country farm estate in Exford, on Exmoor, Devon where while he raised cattle and sheep, Ginny built up her herd of rare-breed Angus cattle while Sir Ranulph was on his expeditions. She supported him so greatly, that she was the first woman to receive the Polar Medal. The two remained married until her death from stomach cancer in February 2004.
He embarked on a lecture tour, where in Cheshire he met divorcee horsewoman Louise Millington (born Bath, Somerset circa 1967), whom he married in a ceremony at St Boniface's Church, Bunbury one year and three weeks after Ginny's death. The couple welcomed a daughter Elizabeth in April 2006.
Ranulph Fiennes
This as been imported from wikipedia but I felt that such a great man deserves much recognition has possible
A truly remarkable and extraordinary man of our time…
For a man who shall always have my up most respect. This is why this is posted.
