About John Wilton-Davies

John is 46, and a business consultant from Exeter. He and his wife Michele have two children: Zak aged 5 and Sam, 3.

John grew up in Gosport, Hampshire, spent a year at school in Southsea, and the rest of his school life in Bournemouth. He lived in Jersey for a few years and, after trying out a degree course in Physics with Astrophysics in London, moved to Exeter in 1982, where he has lived since.

He has worked for an insurance company, run several small financial services firms, been an investment manager, and now runs a consultancy business helping financial advisers. He is a keen tennis player and footballer.

In 2004 John decided he wanted to walk to the South Pole. With no experience of winter travel at all he sought experienced help with training, education and the practical application of new skills. After brief training trips to Svalbard and Greenland, he set out alone across Antarctica, travelling 1,000 km in 60 days.

He wandered into a huge crevasse field mid-way through his journey, giving him nightmares for some time, and even camped on top of a crevasse. He found the journey physically easier than he had expected, but suffered from the isolation and lack of external stimulus for much of the time.

Having taken on that expedition as an unknown experience and adventure, John now wishes to push himself to the physical and mental limits to try to achieve a first in polar travel, to test the human body against the extremes of nature, and to bring a major polar record to Britain.

To find out more about John's training for this expedition, click here.