CAPTAIN SCOTT, ERNEST SHACKLETON... AND ME!

TV adventurer Simon Reeve on why he's proud to be part of a great British tradition of intrepid explorers... and how, despite some close scrapes, he's careful not to become a 'statistic of stupidity'

- Dominic Bliss

FROM Francis Drake and Walter Raleigh to David Livingstone and Captain Scott, our tiny island has produced some unbelievably intrepid explorers over the centuries. But who are the modern-day equivalents of those original British trailblazers? Could it be argued they are the travel documentary-makers who now grace our TV screens the likes of David Attenborough, Bruce Parry, Michael Palin and Simon Reeve? "I'm very wary of pompously referencing myself to past historical figures," says the latter, who is now one of our leading travel broadcasters.

"But, yes, in sharing my stories in the modern form with people who watch TV programmes, it's similar to the way a 19th-century explorer might have returned home and booked lecture halls to tell people about the wider world." Over the last 20 years, Reeve, now 51, has travelled all across the planet making documentaries for the BBC.

With his trademark floppy brown fringe and black-and-white cotton keffiyeh scarf, he is one of the more adventurous and engaging British TV personalities.

Among his best-known series are Equator, Tropic of Capricorn, Tropic of Cancer, and Indian Ocean.

His latest, which starts on Sunday, is called Wilderness with Simon Reeve, and sees him visiting four of the most remote regions on the planet the Congo rainforest, the Kalahari desert, the Pacific Ocean's Coral Triangle, and Patagonia - embedding himself with the people who live there.