During my late teens, I was spellbound by the adventures of Benedict Allen.  Probably the greatest British explorer of the late 20th century

Other influences included Major T.E, Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia), and films such as Kundun, the characters of Daniel Dravot and Peachy Carnahan in The Man Who Would Be King, the character of Sir Reginald Johnston in The Last Emporer and even the character of Percey Blakeney in The Scarlett Pimpernel gave me notions that I could make a difference in a ‘truly great’ way if I only set my mind to it.

I determined that I wanted to be like these people who commit their lives to the greater good or who were, at least in my ignorance and arrogance, seemed to me to be ‘good eggs’.  Worthy of emulation!

When I was twenty, news came in that I was finally able to have corrective surgery for an underbite that I had developed as I grew.  I had had retainers and fixed braces for years under the direction of Dr Philip Elesdon, and jaw (orthognathic) surgery was something I knew I needed from about seven years old. It happened at Bromley Hospital in June 1996.

I had been attending Bromley College, studying an HND in Business and Finance, and my operation was to occur before the final exam.  I recall speaking to my tutor about the possibility of doing the exam earlier or later, but she was only fixed on my repeating the second year, which I was not going to do.  I have no idea why, but she was pretty intransigent.  Not all was lost, I had learnt a lot, and I determined to do more work with St Mungo’s upon my recovery whilst still trying to determine what I would do to ‘make my name’.

Having a broken jaw, my jaws had been wired together and were to be like this for three months. Waking from the operation, I was linked to a self-administered morphine driver.  I recall vomiting through my clamped teeth into a blue plastic bowl.  I felt genuinely wretched.

After the operation and when I was in the hospital, I recall seeing an interview on TV featuring Michal Jackson and Lisa Marie Presley, who had married a year earlier.  My godmother had come to visit, and we watched it together.  Dad came to visit, too; he had returned from an extended stay in Africa.  He was a little incensed by the state of the ward I was on and made a fuss.  Of course, Mum was with me every day.

Now I had always been a talker, and post-op, this was an impossibility.  My Dad bought me a liquidiser upon my return home, and for the next 12 weeks, I made milkshakes with milk, Nesquick chocolate powder, eggs and some baby vitamin drops in the mix.  I lost a lot of weight.

During my convalescence, I had considered what I could do, which would be a ‘great’ feat.  I had considered all manner of crazy ideas and finally settled on and fleshed out my plan to ‘Walk Around the World’; I had seen that during a walk of the Vanguard Way in aid of the Community House project in Bromley, the power walks can have in terms of inspiring others to support a cause and in truth, putting one foot in front of another seemed to be something I could do.

Planning the details of the expedition gave me an excellent distraction as Mum’s health deteriorated over the next few years, and it was genuinely the goal; until she died and life was turned upside down again.