I had to leave school at 14 because my father got injured in the mines and I had to support my family. I was an undertakers assistant, then a plasterer, before doing my military service in the RAF. All the while, I was doing amateur dramatics and dreaming of getting a scholarship to the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School.
When I was in Downing Street, David Cameron saw me and said, "Please, shout it all around and let it penetrate to my cabinet meeting." So I bellowed: "Gordon's alive!"
Life is a re-discovery.
I went to drama school but it was very hard to get work until I was made assistant stage manager.
My biggest love is space. I completed 800 hours' space training in Moscow and I became the world's oldest man to go to the North Magnetic Pole. At 67, I also became the oldest man to reach 28,400ft on Everest without oxygen.
My father was a coal hewer from Goldthorpe, a coal-mining village in South Yorkshire. He played for the Yorkshire second team as an opening fast bowler - to me he was a gorgeously heroic man. He helped form a union and closed down the Barnsley seam because it was seeping gas, and saved many, many lives.
The household I grew up in... was rather like an Ovaltine advert. There was a huge fire, a kettle on the fire, the oven with the bread being baked every day, and there was the radio; it was very magical to hear all these wonderful programmes.
I've always been generous and like giving to charities and people in need.
I wasn't good at examinations, but I went to a very good secondary school - Bolton-on-Dearne - with wonderful teachers, who taught me drama and encouraged me in every way.
I've completed half of my space training at Space City in Moscow. I love adventure, and I've been training in a centrifuge and MiG Fighter with a view to going into space and being a spokesman for space exploration!
My brother Alan - who was seven years younger than me - died from leukemia when he was 52. He never knew a day's good health - I wish I could have given him some of my good health. But he was always so cheerful and sweet.
My dad was opening fast bowler for Yorkshire's second team and I couldn't believe he could die. He wasn't going to get better for at least six months, so I left school early to become the family breadwinner.
We had a food store at the theatre and I used to pinch food. I pinched some trousers and shirts to keep me going but they would wear out. I was virtually on the breadline.
