Stop Press!! South Pole!! Amazing Lewis!! Well done on reaching the South Pole – incredible!!!

History is likely to be in the making as 16 year old Lewis Clarke approaches the South Pole. In severely challenging weather, round the clock daylight, deadly minus temperatures and on the back of 702 gruelling, life challenging miles. Pulling his supplies, with no physical or mental comfort. Using thousands of calories, even on a good day. Walking on skis – one of them broken, all the way to the South Pole.

Swimming the Channel… then off to the South Pole!

Lewis decided on the South Pole challenge after initiating and taking part in a relay to swim the British Channel at age 12. That done, he embarked on this polar project. Training, funding, mentally preparing for surely one of the most dangerous and testing journeys that someone of a scant 16 years has ever chosen to undertake?

Of course there are those who argued that Lewis should not have been afforded the extraordinary indulgence of a South Pole adventure. Time out of school and more controversially, choice to put himself, and his guide, in mortal danger. Imagine the strain for parents as a teenage son battles on, visibly losing kilos of body fat. Wrestling with a persistent ‘Antarctic Cough’ and facing ongoing imminent danger of frostbite. Yet Lewis’s parents are remarkable in their support and unconditional love for him. Stumping up an inheritance to make this whim reality and holding their nerve, 9000 miles away. Bravely affording him the freedom to explore his potential – on behalf of every teenage boy and humankind as a whole. This, at a time when many despair at stories of those who are sharing the leftovers of what they had for their tea on Facebook. Or rolling eyeballs at the thought of a spot of homework. Yes, history is in the making.

And yet, what makes this so truly remarkable is that Lewis is also a normal teenage boy. Running late. Rorgetting things. Being ill-prepared, rejecting adult advice, and still wanting to play. Amazing, over the coming hours, a normal, yet extraordinary, young man of barely 16 years, is going to do what few others have attempted. He is going to have gone further, for longer, at a younger age than any other human in the history books. Apparently Lewis is having difficulty choosing whether to stagger right up to the South Pole or bale out a few metres short and take the offer of the warm bath and food that awaits at the polar station. An understandable dilemma!

His younger brother, should not be overlooked for his own generosity towards the ultimate pain of a big brother. Setting him right up with, ‘follow that’. Li’l bro has maintained the required nonchalance whilst the elder proto-type risks life, limb and family stability in an inimitable hare-brained jape. He got his own back, in the way that only a sibling can needle. He asked big bro, in front of all their mates and the media, via Skype on satellite, ‘are you looking forward to Nutella when you get back?’ An innocent, ‘who me?’, a strong, comfortingly familiar, encouraging and reassuring kick under the global table. Whilst Lewis, drained and exhausted searches for every drop of hidden strength for the last, difficult 40 miles. So near, yet so far. Words delivered with the precision of a skilled martial warrior. Sibling love and, ‘by the way, what’s all the fuss about?’ An ordinary family each demonstrating, in their complementary roles, how extraordinary humans can be.

It remains to wish Lewis every success in his attempt on the South Pole. A speedy and complete recovery and absolute admiration for every painful step, breath and deprivation of those deadly white miles of nothing but Voldemortian blasts. That unending view and the desolate landscape of the teenage mind. Lewis, we salute you, and look forward to the holiday snaps and hearing where you’re headed next because, rest assured, Lewis – and the Clarkes are not done with adventure yet!