Image credit: Netflix
Bear Grylls is one of the most recognised faces of survival and outdoor adventure, he's a best-selling author, Everest 'summiter', television presenter and former SAS trooper. He spoke to Saga Magazine about his new TV series and turning 50.
Bear's new series sees him teach survival skills to celebrities in the Central American jungle before they become ‘prey’ for Bear to hunt.
Did he enjoy it?
"It was the most fun filming I’ve ever had, though it was physically exhausting," he says. "It was three weeks in crazy heat and 100% humidity, which took its toll on the celebrities. It was a great mix of teaching skills, then putting them to the test.
"I get a kick out of seeing how pressure changes people and, as ever in survival, unlikely heroes come to the top. Some people crumble, some just elevate."
"The honest answer is I don’t think I’m dealing with it very well," he admits. "For the first month or so I threw out all the clichés of age being just a number.
"Now I’ve decided I’m going to look at it not in years, but in percentage. I’m sure we’re going to be able to live to 200 in the next 30 years, so the way I see it, I had a very good 25% birthday."
But has he found any advantages to getting older?
"I read about a centenarian who was asked that," he says. "And straight off the bat she said, ‘no peer pressure’. I really liked that. And I’m better at everyday gratitude."
Bear has been married to his wife Shara for nearly 25 years after meeting her just two months before he left to climb Mount Everest.
They spent their first years on a houseboat. How was that?
"At first it was quite hard work to persuade Shara it was a good idea," he says. "It was pretty off-grid, always leaking and rusting, and everything in our life stank of diesel 24/7. But she grew to love it.
"Years later it was even harder to persuade her it was a good idea to buy an island five miles offshore [near Abersoch, north Wales], which I did in 2001, but now it’s her favourite place in life, our main home, so maybe there’s a pattern.
"On paper Shara is not an adventurer but, in fact, she does have that spirit."
"I’ve got a long list of dramas to my name and should have died 20 times over the years – and that’s a conservative estimate. But I think fear is something you have to learn to live with every day, so I don’t run from the scary things, I try to embrace them.
"Skydiving is still hard after my accident – I was in Zambia in 1996 with the Special Forces when my parachute failed to inflate, causing me to land on my back. I’m in pain every day, but I still skydive all the time."
And what was the best advice his parents gave him?
"That being a never-give-upper in life counts for a great deal. You don’t have to be the sportiest or the cleverest – those things are God-given talents – but you can be the resilient one.
Celebrity Bear Hunt is on Netflix from 5 February.
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