The Christmas before Ted did his Sahara endeavour, his second he had done a recce beforehand, he stayed with us down in Oxford.

It was the winter of 81/82 and we had 3 foot of snow in the garden of the farmhouse we rented. Kevin Leary took a photograph of Ted in his Arab gear from a position of lying in the snow. All you could see was a resplendent Ted and a beautiful Azure blue sky.

Ted took that photo into the Eccles journal just before he left as a bit of publicity explaining what he was about to do.

"Eh, you don't get skies like that in England do you" was the remark from the journalist !!

We bought him a bucket and spade for his trip.