Brian Blessed

I'm a fully trained cosmonaut and have completed 800 hours training, which has made me the No. 1 civilian reserve ready to visit the International Space Station. I am determined to go up, and I want to explore the Moon, Mars and beyond! ”

My dream is to own a Hockney - I'm a Yorkshireman, and his vibrant colours are a good example of how the north-country people are vibrant and colourful. ”

My parents taught me honesty, truth, compassion, kindness and how to care for people. Also, they encouraged me to take risks, to boldly go. They taught me that the greatest danger in life is not taking the adventure. ”

I have marvelous dreams! I meet Buddha, I meet Jesus, I meet Mohammed. I constantly dream of space, stars and planets: we are the children of stardust. ”

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. ”

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 undertaker's 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. ”

I've become quite a serious explorer: I've been to Everest three times; I'm the oldest man to reach the North Pole; and I've just been to the lost world of Venezuela. ”

There will be no funeral! Before I get too old and ill, I'll go to South America and live among the Pemon people and meditate. When the time is right, they can throw my body into the volcano. ”