RF
An angina attack 300 metres below the summit ridge of Everest in 2005, having spent 72 days getting that far.
The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 31 May 2008 source ↗
The question
What disappointment has stayed with you longest?Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
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Others on this question
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Joanna Scanlan
British actress and writer
Never getting back to a size 12.
Jenny Agutter
English actress
When I was 14 I went up for Juliet with Zeffirelli and I was hugely disappointed that I didn’t get that.
Jeremy Kyle
English radio and television presenter
My ears – disappointments that grow bigger each year.
Kellie Maloney
Retired boxing manager, promoter and politician
Not being truthful to everyone from an earlier age.
More from Ranulph Fiennes
View profile →In 1982, having travelled for three years to do the first journey around the earth on its polar axis. Charles Burton and I were trying to get from the north pole down to our ship on the edge of the Arctic Sea. We had to float for three months on a diminishing ice floe. Eventually we had to leave the floe and try to get to the ship in canoes with skis under them. In the maze of broken ice we saw its masts on the horizon. That second was probably my happiest moment.
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