AROUND 10.30am on a warm Sunday in July I am drinking a cup of coffee, lazily munching a slice of toast, maybe with some marmalade, and contemplating a dubious series of digits that I have scribbled onto a scrap of paper after being assured that they comprise a genuine telephone number.

Might as well dial them up and see what happens.

In a hotel room 7,000 miles away, around 6.30am, a middle-aged man has finally got his head down after a gruelling and hazardous feat of endurance that has seen him spend 12 days in a rickety light aircraft flying more than 11,000 miles from Cape Columbia in the Arctic Circle to Cape Horn off the tip of South America.

What he craved most during this physically and mentally demanding world record breaking escapade was sleep glorious sleep, and plenty of it - preferably with a crisp, fat, freshly laundered pillow under his head.

As a heavenly darkness finally descends and that welcoming flood of peace and tranquillity begin to sink in he is abruptly startled by the harsh tones of a telephone - and to make matters worse, there is some bloke from Swindon on the end of it.

“Hey David, you did it then….” I venture.

Many of us, in his place, may well have responded with something along the lines of: “Why the heck are you ringing up me now - I’ve hardly slept a ruddy wink for nearly two exhausting weeks.”

But not David Hempleman-Adams. The Freeman of Swindon is as gracious as ever as he temporarily postpones his well-earned kip and relates, with some dramatic flourishes, another remarkable chapter in a remarkable life.

A day earlier he and co-pilot Lorne White were approaching Cape Horn when the trim of their flimsy pink Cessna 182 – which keeps the aircraft level – froze over.

To avoid calamity they were forced into a heart-stopping drop from 7,000ft to 400ft in order to de-ice the thing…plunging nose first into the type of raging storm Cape Horn is renowned for.

“You could see the whites of the waves in a deep black sea just below us…it was really scary….we were holding the joystick like mad…you had to hold it down or it would have been ‘goodnight nurse…one minute we were freezing then we were sweating.”

Just another day at the office for The Hemp, you might say, but its Boy’s Own stuff for most of us.

I am reminded of 2004’s Cape 2 Cape challenge because father-of-three David Hempleman-Adams, now 58, has set off on another expedition.

Barring mishaps - and there have been plenty - David is currently hauling a sledge through 100 punishing miles of ice and snow towards the North Pole in biting, sub-zero temperatures….and loving every minute.

I first met David during the Eighties when his early expeditions were rubbished by some pot-belied national newspaper hacks after a rival publication had the temerity to print his story first.

As I remember, a somewhat sourly worded apology was later published at the bottom of page 69, or thereabouts.

He was also bad-mouthed for shooting dead a polar bear on a lone trek to the Magnetic North Pole.

But what do you reckon you would have done with a snarling 1,300lb mass of muscle and fur charging straight at you? A selfie – had they existed – would have been out of the question.

With 1,400 words to play with, it is impossible to do justice to the achievements of the man the Daily Telegraph lauded as “one of the world’s greatest adventurers.”

Over the years he has whacked out record after record, be it climbing mountains, trekking to poles, sailing to the Antarctic, or gliding over the Andes in a hot-air balloon.

Before the 20th Century had closed he became the first person to achieve the Explorer’s Grand Slam – scaling the highest summits of all seven continents while reaching the Geographic and Magnetic North and South Poles

Walking to the moon annoyingly out of the question, he then turned his attention to hot air ballooning.

Cruising over the pleasant fields of Wiltshire, perhaps? Don’t be daft.

Instead, David undertook “the world’s most dangerous balloon flight,” sailing 1,523 miles in 32 hours from the Norwegian island of Spitzbergen to the North Pole, creating a bunch of world records and not getting any sleep either – a recurring theme.

Time to put his feet up then? No chance.

I have to laugh when I recall maybe his greatest adventure, becoming the first person to fly solo across the Atlantic in an open top wicker basket balloon – a real Jules Verne jobbie.

Setting off from New Brunswick in Canada he had spent 83 hours (all sleepless, naturally) being violently buffeted towards Blighty in freezing temperatures and torrential rain.

During the afternoon Monday, September 29, 2003 I am in touch with David’s people for several hours when I finally get the nod just after 6pm. “Go on, you can ring now.”

He’s sitting in a field near Blackpool juggling with a variety of emotions.

About half-an-hour earlier, in less than dignified circumstances, David’s wicker basket had crashed through a wooden fence and ingloriously dragged the returning hero through several hedges before eventually thudding to a halt

During the stress-filled flight – his third attempt at the crossing – two sonic booms from a passing Concorde caused his balloon to plummet several thousand feet.

It never happened to Phileas Fogg!

Down the phone, he is echoing sentiments expressed by rower Steve Redgrave upon winning his fourth Olympic Gold seven years earlier. “If anyone sees me in a hot air balloon again – shoot me.”

Both Hempleman-Adams and Redgrave were soon back in their respective conveyances without any reported assassination attempts.

From the Brecon Beacons to global expeditions

BORN in Swindon in 1956, David grew-up in Bourne Road and attended Moredon infants and junior schools.

He acquired a taste for adventure on a rock climbing trip to the Brecon Beacons at 13 and went onto achieve his Duke of Edinburgh Gold award.

The first mountain he climbed was Alaska’s Mount McKinley, the highest point in North America, in 1980.

Work-wise he has held various positions at Robnor, the South Marston resins firm founded by his father.

He has probably won more gongs than Usain Bolt… among them The Freedom of Swindon in 1998.