Passed/Failed: An education in the life of Benedict Allen, explorer, author and filmmaker

'It all began with a stuffed crocodile'

Benedict Allen, 49, has made 1,000-mile treks on foot in the "Skeleton Coast" of Namibia, the Gobi Desert and Siberia. His television programmes include Last of the Medicine Men and Adventure for Boys. He is one of the speakers at Adventure Travel Live (29-31 January at the Royal Horticultural Halls, London SW1 www.adventuretravellive.com)

My father was a test pilot helping to develop the Vulcan and it was very exciting, looking up to see him flying over in a huge delta-winged bomber. We lived near Woodford airfield in Cheshire; then he flew "civilian" aircraft, so we moved near Heathrow.

I went to a primary school in Chalfont St Peter, Buckinghamshire. I remember being bullied, which is funny, because I'm very big. They were so parochial in Buckinghamshire and had never had anyone from Cheshire; they said, "You're a Yank!" I've always been a maverick and disliked seeing people pushed around.

I've not been bullied since. At Gayhurst, my prep school in Gerrards Cross, I was the biggest in my year. I interceded in a fight and ended up being accused of bullying. I was made an example of; the headmaster yanked me by the ear to the front of the assembly. Then he discovered he had made this terrible mistake and apologised in front of everyone. It must have been very hard for him: he was my uncle.

I think the teaching was very good, apart from French; and the person who taught me French was my uncle. I've had to learn a lot of languages by now. Part of the reason I've always wanted to be an explorer is that my dad was flying to Africa for Zambian Airways and used to bring things like a stuffed crocodile, which I still have.

Bradfield College, the public school in Berkshire, was a very supportive environment for a non-conformist like me. I'm especially grateful to my long-suffering housemaster, Sam Hunt. The school was very proud of being in the country. Richard Adams had been a pupil and set Watership Down in the surrounding countryside.

I got ten O-levels, with just a C in French. At A-level, I did what I decided would best suit an explorer: biology, geography and, as I knew I'd write about my journeys, English.

The University of East Anglia had its wonderful School of Environmental Sciences, something quite unique: a whole building of scientists of different disciplines, including the now-controversial Climatic Research Unit.

It was what I wanted, except that I hadn't been on an expedition. In my final year I went on three scientific expeditions. We went to a volcano in Costa Rica and to Brunei, and I headed the university expedition to Iceland. I got a 2:1 in environmental science, which was generous because I was often away on my expeditions, and they even kindly awarded me a near-perfect 98.5 per cent for my thesis.

Then I went on to Aberdeen University for an MSc in ecology. It was a disaster. I was half-heartedly going along to lectures, but thinking all the time, "I've got to have a real adventure."

I planned what started as a six-man expedition to the Darien Gap in Panama and Colombia, but it got terribly difficult because the Falklands War was on. I never got there. I took the final exams but I still don't know if I passed or failed.

I left rather with my tail between my legs. I worked in a warehouse stacking books to earn enough money to get to the Orinoco and lived with the Indians. My poor old mum was very good about it, although she kept saying, "What about a proper job?"