Mementoes linking the ill-fated British explorer, Robert Falcon Scott, with the Norwegian who beat him to the South Pole in 1911, Roald Amundsen, have surfaced in London. A White Ensign found by Capt Scott on a beach in Antarctica in 1902, during his first expedition in Discovery, is expected to fetch up to £5,000 at a Christie's travel sale on September 26th.
Explorer Pen Hadow, organiser of the first successful all-women expedition to the North Pole, will this week announce six more Polar challenges. Some of the women who completed the relay to the Arctic this spring will be among those applying to go on another trek to the frozen wastes.
Veteran mountaineer Norman Croucher is set to climb the 14,600-ft Matterhorn in the Swiss Alps for charity this week - thanks to his spare leg. Despite losing both legs in a rail accident 38 years ago, the 56-year-old has scaled some of the world's most famous peaks.
But his latest high altitude challenge was threatened when he cracked one of his artificial legs while training in Switzerland.
A freight firm flew out his spare limb free of charge enabling him and the other four members of his climbing team to start the ascent on the Matterhorn today.
A museum dedicated to the fictional detective Sherlock Holmes could be set up on Dartmoor - scene of the super-sleuth's famed case, The Hound of the Bas- kervilles.
Sir Cliff Richard speaks today of the pressures exerted on his Christian faith by living in an intense and sceptical media spotlight. In the Church of Scotland's Life and Work magazine he says he finds living with his faith increasingly difficult and hates being seen as "some kind of plaster saint".