Paul Rose
He has led a crossing of the Greenland icecap and attempted to reach the summit of Mount Everest. Last year, he received the Society’s Ness Award ‘for the popularisation of geography and the wider understanding of the world’ and he has also been the recipient of both the Queen’s Polar Medal and the US Navy Polar Medal. Natalie Hoare caught up in with him after his return from filming his latest BBC series, Oceans
I couldn’t stand sitting in a classroom. I failed my 11-Plus but was saved from certain disaster by my geography teacher. He stepped away from the classroom, and all the horrors that it held for me, and took the class to the Brecon Beacons. Those first big climbs, walks and even peeling spuds at the Merthyr Tydfil youth hostel were a defining period for me.
We were taught how to navigate using a map and compass, and all these things we had been forced to learn in the classroom started to make sense to me. Things such as angles and mathematics all seemed to have a use in the outdoors and I began to appreciate their value. Once I was standing there looking at the stone walls, valleys and reservoirs and relating them to the map I was holding, I knew I wanted to be a geographer – I just didn’t know it was called that until later.
My first job was delivering meat on a bicycle for the butcher. I then got onto a four-year tool-making apprenticeship at Ford in Dagenham, which had a great social scene through various sports clubs. During that time I learned to dive, climb, sail, and I even became a qualified toolmaker. I learned quickly and found that applying mathematics to engineering and mechanics was a breeze, because I understood it from sailing and from navigating around the hills with a map and compass.
After four years making giant press tools for car body parts, I got a job at Lesney in Leytonstone, making the tools that made Matchbox toy cars. I started to earn some proper, non-apprenticeship money, and that’s where the diving really took off. Then I moved to the USA.
Americans had a real ‘go for it’ attitude, which I felt was missing in Britain at that time. While working for Johnson Outboards, which makes engines for boats, I got my PADI diving instructor and commercial diving tickets and gained my mountain guides qualification.
It was still a hobby until I picked up some contracts teaching high school students, emergency response dive teams, police departments, fire departments and underwater recovery teams. I also owned a climbing shop and travel agency at the time and was guiding in the mountains. When I landed a job as the diving instructor at the US Naval Training Center, I was able to quit my day job and become a diving and mountain guide full time. Right up until 1988, I was guiding and teaching climbing and diving for a living – and working commercially.
Then a mate and I bought a permit for Mount Everest. By that time, I was married and had a son, Scott, so we moved back to Britain for a year to spend as much time as possible training. We made an unsuccessful summit attempt via the Northeast Ridge in 1989.
After I returned, I heard that the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) needed field assistants, so I applied and got a job that led to a ten-year stint in the Antarctic.
Being base commander for the BAS was a cross between being a ship’s captain, a factory manager and a football referee. It’s a big, complex job – I was sworn in as a magistrate to enforce British law and uphold Britain’s claim in the Antarctic.
Not having the traditional academic background worked in my favour. Rather than having just a cold scientific view of everything, my background enabled me to see the bigger picture and understand the complex logistics while also being empathetic to the science.
After Antarctica, I went straight to the Middle East, leading huge mountain-safety projects for oil and gas companies. At that time, I was lucky enough to be voted in as the vice president of the RGS-IBG and chair of the expedition and fieldwork division. It was a great period; the Society was working to unlock its archives and was launching the Shoals of Capricorn Programme [a major marine-science project in the Indian Ocean], which was our largest, most complex fieldwork project ever.
One day, I took a BBC team on a tour of the Society. As I rattled on, they must have seen some kind of potential in me as they told me they were on the lookout for a new factual and science presenter and invited me to have a go. Next thing I knew, I was presenting a climate change programme, Meltdown, which led to Take One Museum, Voyages of Discovery and now Oceans, the latest series, which is on air this month
I’ve followed my heart – always. But it’s often been at the cost of everything else. If it comes to making a sensible business decision, my first priority has always been to be out there alongside Mother Nature, doing what I do best.
I’m still very involved with the Society. This year, I’m chairing the Explore conference and I regularly lecture there. I very much consider myself to be a geographer
and see the RGS as my spiritual home.
Curriculum vitae
• 1951: born in Elm Park, near Romford, Essex
• 1968: started a toolmaking apprenticeship with Ford
• 1972: moved to Lesney toy factory
• 1974–75: emigrated to the USA to work with Johnson Outboards
• 1979: became a qualified PADI diving instructor
• 1980–81: qualified as a mountain guide
• 1992–2002: field officer/base commander/institute diving officer for Rothera Research Station, Antarctica
• 1999–2002: vice president of the RGS (with IBG) and chair of the expeditions and fieldwork division
• 2002–2005: mountain safety consultant, Middle East
• 2005– : presenter of several BBC programmes, including Meltdown, Take One Museum, Voyages of Discovery and Oceans
To find out more, visit www.paulrose.org
I couldn’t stand sitting in a classroom. I failed my 11-Plus but was saved from certain disaster by my geography teacher. He stepped away from the classroom, and all the horrors that it held for me, and took the class to the Brecon Beacons. Those first big climbs, walks and even peeling spuds at the Merthyr Tydfil youth hostel were a defining period for me.
We were taught how to navigate using a map and compass, and all these things we had been forced to learn in the classroom started to make sense to me. Things such as angles and mathematics all seemed to have a use in the outdoors and I began to appreciate their value. Once I was standing there looking at the stone walls, valleys and reservoirs and relating them to the map I was holding, I knew I wanted to be a geographer – I just didn’t know it was called that until later.
My first job was delivering meat on a bicycle for the butcher. I then got onto a four-year tool-making apprenticeship at Ford in Dagenham, which had a great social scene through various sports clubs. During that time I learned to dive, climb, sail, and I even became a qualified toolmaker. I learned quickly and found that applying mathematics to engineering and mechanics was a breeze, because I understood it from sailing and from navigating around the hills with a map and compass.
After four years making giant press tools for car body parts, I got a job at Lesney in Leytonstone, making the tools that made Matchbox toy cars. I started to earn some proper, non-apprenticeship money, and that’s where the diving really took off. Then I moved to the USA.
Americans had a real ‘go for it’ attitude, which I felt was missing in Britain at that time. While working for Johnson Outboards, which makes engines for boats, I got my PADI diving instructor and commercial diving tickets and gained my mountain guides qualification.
It was still a hobby until I picked up some contracts teaching high school students, emergency response dive teams, police departments, fire departments and underwater recovery teams. I also owned a climbing shop and travel agency at the time and was guiding in the mountains. When I landed a job as the diving instructor at the US Naval Training Center, I was able to quit my day job and become a diving and mountain guide full time. Right up until 1988, I was guiding and teaching climbing and diving for a living – and working commercially.
Then a mate and I bought a permit for Mount Everest. By that time, I was married and had a son, Scott, so we moved back to Britain for a year to spend as much time as possible training. We made an unsuccessful summit attempt via the Northeast Ridge in 1989.
After I returned, I heard that the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) needed field assistants, so I applied and got a job that led to a ten-year stint in the Antarctic.
Being base commander for the BAS was a cross between being a ship’s captain, a factory manager and a football referee. It’s a big, complex job – I was sworn in as a magistrate to enforce British law and uphold Britain’s claim in the Antarctic.
Not having the traditional academic background worked in my favour. Rather than having just a cold scientific view of everything, my background enabled me to see the bigger picture and understand the complex logistics while also being empathetic to the science.
After Antarctica, I went straight to the Middle East, leading huge mountain-safety projects for oil and gas companies. At that time, I was lucky enough to be voted in as the vice president of the RGS-IBG and chair of the expedition and fieldwork division. It was a great period; the Society was working to unlock its archives and was launching the Shoals of Capricorn Programme [a major marine-science project in the Indian Ocean], which was our largest, most complex fieldwork project ever.
One day, I took a BBC team on a tour of the Society. As I rattled on, they must have seen some kind of potential in me as they told me they were on the lookout for a new factual and science presenter and invited me to have a go. Next thing I knew, I was presenting a climate change programme, Meltdown, which led to Take One Museum, Voyages of Discovery and now Oceans, the latest series, which is on air this month
I’ve followed my heart – always. But it’s often been at the cost of everything else. If it comes to making a sensible business decision, my first priority has always been to be out there alongside Mother Nature, doing what I do best.
I’m still very involved with the Society. This year, I’m chairing the Explore conference and I regularly lecture there. I very much consider myself to be a geographer
and see the RGS as my spiritual home.
Curriculum vitae
• 1951: born in Elm Park, near Romford, Essex
• 1968: started a toolmaking apprenticeship with Ford
• 1972: moved to Lesney toy factory
• 1974–75: emigrated to the USA to work with Johnson Outboards
• 1979: became a qualified PADI diving instructor
• 1980–81: qualified as a mountain guide
• 1992–2002: field officer/base commander/institute diving officer for Rothera Research Station, Antarctica
• 1999–2002: vice president of the RGS (with IBG) and chair of the expeditions and fieldwork division
• 2002–2005: mountain safety consultant, Middle East
• 2005– : presenter of several BBC programmes, including Meltdown, Take One Museum, Voyages of Discovery and Oceans
To find out more, visit www.paulrose.org
