Joining the Royal Scots Greys, Rannulph later progressed to become a member of the SAS and the youngest captain in the British Army. After spending eight years serving in the British Army, Ranulph fostered invaluable skills of maximising peak performance, decision making under pressure and working in a high-profile team. Two years of his service was spent seconded to the Army of the Sultan of Oman, dealing with a communist insurgency. In 1971 he decided to leave the army, and devote his attention to becoming an expedition leader.
Accompanied by his wife Ginnie, the pair performed expeditions that placed them at the forefront of the world of exploration for over three decades. Rannulph began his expeditions back in the 1960s, exploring the White Nile on a hovercraft and Norway’s Jostedalsbreen Glacier. Fuelled to push himself further, Ranulph attempted a Transglobe Expedition in 1979, becoming the first adventurer to cross the polar axis with only surface transport. Rannulph has also discovered the lost city of Ubar, a success after seven previous attempts over 26 years. In 1993 Ranulph took 93 days to cross the Antarctic, which soon came to be one of Ranulph’s most well-known missions after he was the first adventurer to cross the Antarctic unsupported. A mission that required faultless resilience, Ranulph is able to draw on such experience in his tenure as a motivational speaker inspiring future generations of explorers to test their boundaries.
In extreme conditions, Ranulph has learnt to think quickly under pressure, calculate risks and has fine-tuned his endurance to reach places no others have before. In 2000 he attempted to walk solo, unsupported to the North Pole but unfortunately was unsuccessful after his sledges fell through thin ice and he sustained severe frostbite on his left hand. Upon returning home Rannulph was left with necrotic fingertips, and after the doctors refused to amputate Ranulph cut off his own dying fingertips. Unfortunately, Ranulph also suffered a heart attack and underwent double heart bypass surgery. After a few months of recovery, he completed seven marathons in just seven days, the Land Rover 7x7x7. Running in Patagonia, the Falkland Islands, Sydney, Singapore, London, Cairo and New York City, Ranulph pushed himself to the extreme. A great desire of Rannulph’s was to scale Mount Everest, attempting numerous times to scale the mountain before successful being the oldest Briton to scale Mount Everest in 2009.
Ranulph has been named Just Giving’s Greatest Celebrity Fundraiser, raising an incredible £2.5 million for the charity Marie Curie. He has also been awarded the 2007 Greatest Britons Award and the honour of OBE. In reward for his services to British Polar exploration and search, Ranulph has also been awarded the Polar Medal. Alongside his incredible commitment to exploration, Ranulph has created quite the reputation as an author publishing over 30 books. Now also sought after as an intriguing and motivational speaker, Sir Ranulph is highly-engaging discussing the lessons he learnt whilst traversing the globe. Charismatic and unphased by a large crowd, Sir Ranulph is guaranteed to hook audiences with his incredible tales of the globe.
