My Haven SIR DAVID HEMPLEMAN-ADAMS

The explorer, 61, in the office of his family home in Bath

1 A HEAD FOR ADVENTURE

There is no evidence of expeditions in this house except here, in my room. I was given this hat in 1998 when I was the first person to complete the Adventurers Grand Slam – climbing the highest peak on each continent, including Everest and Kilimanjaro, and getting to the geographic and magnetic North and South Poles. When I was returning on my successful third attempt from the North Pole, I arrived at the tiny Canadian village of Resolute Bay. A local Mounted Police guy asked for the smelly hat I’d been wearing for 60 days and gave me his gleaming hat in exchange.

2 MY DAREDEVIL DAUGHTERS

This photo was taken with my daughters Alicia, Camilla and Amelia, now 28, 25 and 23, in the Brecon Beacons in December 2016. As we came down the mountain, I’d just told them I was going to be knighted. It was there that I had my first adventure as a 13-year-old, and it was the scariest thing I’ve done – it was the first time I’d been away from home. It was for my bronze Duke of Edinburgh’s

Award, a scheme which should be compulsory for young people, as you learn so much.

3 MOUNTAIN MAN

I first climbed Mount Everest in 1993 on the route Edmund Hillary took, then in 2011 I did it a second time, but this time on the north side, which is tougher. I led that trip and wasn’t supposed to climb to the summit, but there was a bit of oxygen left so I went up. These oxygen masks and regulators are from my climbs. As a boy, I read about explorers but never thought I’d ever climb Everest. This painting of the north face by the British landscape artist Alan Cotton is very beautiful and a great reminder.

4 HEROIC FAILURES

The polar explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton has always been a hero of mine, he was a real maverick and all his men loved him. Although, like Captain Scott, he also failed on his trips, I’ve always been a huge admirer and I think he was a great leader. This book is signed by Shackleton and his team on his 1914 Endurance expedition to the Antarctic. I bought it at Christie’s a few years ago for a stupid amount of money.

5 DARTING TOWARDS DANGER

A Norwegian friend asked me to help him find the source of the Orinoco River in South America. But I hated it and came back early. I like cold weather, not humidity and bugs. While there, we came across a village where they were using blow pipes. I brought these ones leaning against the mantelpiece home, with the poison darts on the desk. One day I showed them to a friend and his daughter – she puffed on the pipe, a dart hit him in the head and he collapsed, but luckily he recovered.

6 ON A KNIFE EDGE

Inuit women use knives like this one I collected, an ulu, to skin animals. I use mine to chop parsley. Also on the desk in front of me is the Harmon Trophy, which is an international award for achievements in aeronautics. I was given it for being the first to fly solo from Spitsbergen in

Norway to the North Pole and back in a hot air balloon, in 2000. People had tried before and died, but I was lucky. If it goes wrong on that trip, there’s no rescue.

As told to Andrew Preston. Open Water, Breaking Ice, David’s book about sailing round the North Pole in a boat, is out now, £24.99, Halsgrove. All proceeds go to Leukaemia Research.