Island Life Magazine Ltd December 2007/January 2008 | Page 27

INTERVIEW
me was if I tried to kill myself !
They must have wanted me
dead – no money unless I
finished!” He raised £35,000.
He takes a sip of Guinness.
“Afterwards I thought,
that wasn’t too bad, it was
containable.” The following
year he did the Himalayan
100, 100 miles reaching
14,000ft, during which he saw
Everest for the first time. “I
thought, ‘I have to have it”,
he says. So 2002 saw him in a
team expedition to Everest.
The following year was
the Round Britain Island
Yacht Race, and after that
he was invited to join the
‘Team Samsung’ Global
Challenge. And earlier this
year was a 400m race to the
North Pole. His frost-bitten
finger and toe-nails have
only just grown back.
“I’ve got so much out of
sport, and I’ve come out
of it with all my faculties
intact, I wanted to put
something back,” he says,
immediately apologising
if that “sounds twee”.
So he visits schools to plant
in the children the seeds of

life

Photo: Pole dancing:
Roddy reaches his goal

Photo: Stage post: in
third position after
first hundred miles

ambition: “because children are the
future”. The money raised by 2007’s
venture, the North Pole race, is going
towards helping to establish a bursary
for a school in which he has taken

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particular interest, the Stepping Stones
School for children with cerebral palsy.
“If, after hearing me speak, a child with
cerebral palsy thinks, yes, today I can
climb a mountain – or whatever is their

own personal mountain to climb – then
it’s done some good,” Roddy says.
“I use myself as an example – because
I never knew I could run five marathons
back-to-back. I only found out what
I was capable of by default.”
He never thought he could reach
base camp of Everest at 5200m, let
alone eight or so thousand metres. He
tells how he discovered he could cope
with extreme altitude and cold, or
helm a 72ft boat while suffering with
a broken foot – even baking bread for
the 18-man crew, in a storm, in an oven

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