FIRST PERSON: Documentary filmmaker Alexis Girardet

AS A child I loved expeditions. I was born in London in 1967 to a German father and British mother of Asian heritage. We moved to Monmouthshire in 1976 as my parents wanted to get into self-sufficiency.

I did a lot of mucking about in the woods and went on trips to the Brecon Beacons, the Lake District, the Cairngorms and the Alps. In sixth form I went to Alaska with the British Schools Exploring Society. My parents had bought me a 35mm Praktica camera so I was put into the photography section to catalogue the expedition.

I went to Monmouth Boys but I wasn't madly keen on being told what to do, and was keen to get on.

I left school and got a job at BBC Bristol as a post boy, but was able to spend my spare time with the editors in their Nissen huts just hanging out with them. Their assistants were quite happy to give me menial jobs like syncing up rushes, cutting off the bits of film you don't want, and I was lapping it up.

I left for London to work as a fashion photographer's assistant for Vogue and the Sunday Times magazine, but it wasn't my cup of tea.

One day a BBC assistant editor left, so I was asked if I wanted to have a go. That was the start of my TV career. I also worked as a dubbing editor, creating sound, because a lot of nature documentaries come back with very little sound.

I remember using a pair of leather gloves to recreate the sound of flapping wings. For a Natural World programme about beavers I had to simultaneously chew a bit of wood and a carrot at the same time to recreate the sound of a beaver chomping through a tree in Alaska.

By then I'd married my wife Jo, we'd had the first of our four children and were living in Bristol. I was 21 when I cut my first film, but I knew I wanted to direct.

One day in 1992, my early mentor Terrence Francis rang me and said he'd a film for me to cut about refugees coming from Ethiopia via Somalia. It was for Channel 4, half an hour at prime time. "The only problem," he said, "is I haven't got a director yet, so as soon as I do I'll give you a call." I cheekily said, "I'll direct it," and a week later he rang and said "why don't you come and have a go?" I got to go to Ethiopia which is an amazing country and that was the start of my proper film career.

It's a hard industry to get into - I used to spend months sending out CVs and maybe get one reply - but my advice is that if you can keep plugging away, eventually you'll get a break.

We had another child and moved back to Monmouthshire. Jo's parents ran Wiggy's Bakery in Monmouth and my parents are nearby. They very kindly gave us what was at the time a derelict barn, and we slowly converted it into our house and had another two children.

In 1999 I made a film for BBC1 about the Ogwen Valley Mountain Rescue Team, an amazing bunch. We'd go out with them on shouts and I absolutely loved it - it was exactly what I wanted to do. On our first shout a Sea King helicopter came from RAF Valley and I was winched out onto the top of Tryfan in Snowdonia where someone had gone missing.

I worked on "Animal Park" with a brilliant team of people at Longleat and it was great fun. I worked with the presenters on all the stuff they did, Ben Fogle and Kate Humble, and am still working with them today.

I remember on Boxing Day 2004, Ben rang and said "I'm thinking of rowing the Atlantic with James Cracknell, shall we make a programme?" We got a commission for one, one-hour programme with James Cracknell on BBC2. I was filming, directing and producing. We soon realised we had masses of great stuff so the Beeb gave us five, half-hour slots of BBC2 plus a one-hour special for BBC1.

We rigged up the boat with cameras. They rang me on Christmas Day, four weeks into the race, and told me "it's all gone wrong, the boat's capsized!" I was trying to reassure them when they were in the middle of the Atlantic. What they went through was incredible, and the show won some awards which was lovely.

Then Ben discovered a 750km race across Antarctica, to the South Pole, the first organised race there. We were given five, one-hours, which is a massive commission, for BBC2. We spent two years making the series and this time we went with them. Ben and James raised all the money themselves to take part, we didn't pay them a penny. The training involved travelling to Norway for ski training, crevasse rescue in Austria, Swiss high altitude training, to the USA for team bonding. They also chose their third member, Dr Ed Coates.

We landed on Antarctica on December 19, 2008, my son's 18th birthday. Everywhere you looked there was something amazing. As we moved inland and up in altitude the temperature dropped to -35, but with wind chill it was more like -40 or -50.

It was a hard race. Living there every day you've got to pack up your home and rebuild, and melt snow for three hours to get water. Even toothpaste freezes and you eat freeze-dried food, which tastes like cardboard. The inside of your tent gets covered in a thin layer of ice which falls on your head, and there's a risk of hypothermia, frost nip or bite, and trench foot.

On New Year's Eve we were going to have a party before the race started when a massive storm came in. We were tent-bound for days and that's when you realise, if something happens to this nylon tent, no one is going to come and get you, no helicopters can fly that far. There are a few other tents around you, but you're on your own in the middle of nowhere, with nothing. It's a stunning, pristine wilderness.

James got frost bite on a finger and Ben got frost nip on his nose. That's pretty much the furthest I've seen people push themselves, particularly James, he's a prime athlete. I came back and thought, that's one of my top things in life ticked off.

Two years later, the charity Walking With The Wounded got in touch about taking an expedition to the North Pole with wounded servicemen and making a documentary, as they'd seen "On Thin Ice".

They got Prince Harry to take part so we got two, one-hours for BBC1. I wanted to tell the story of these four guys who had all served their country, who had been blown up and shot at in Afghanistan. We were fully immersed in training, across Exmoor and Dartmoor - these are hardcore army guys. But you do have to keep a line - you've also got to make a programme.

With Prince Harry taking part, there's a lot of planning that goes into it. At the time he was the third in line to the throne. He’s a genuinely lovely guy, great fun but cares absolutely about his work with these guys.

I’ve worked with him on three programmes, and he has matured over the years. We had quite a few laughs, hanging around Svalbard getting delayed for a few weeks. He has three sides to his life, his public life, his military life and his private life, and he says the military life is his favourite.

There’s a trust between soldiers, and he has no airs and graces. He could be helping a soldier who’s got a stump to make sure it’s not getting rubbed, and he can also have a laugh with them.

We spent 11 days on the ice for "Harry’s Arctic Heroes". Harry was with us for the first four days and he was very upset when he had to leave.

In 2012 we did Harry’s Mountain Heroes on Everest for ITV, then back to the South Pole in 2013 which was my second trip there. Harry came the whole way, and we did two, one-hours for ITV and one hour for NBC in America, which was broadcast in 2014, “Harry’s South Pole Heroes”.

For all three soldier programmes Lorne Balfe did all the music for free with Hans Zimmer. Those must’ve been multi-million-pound scores so to have them do it for free is phenomenal.

In the Poles we had a clear schedule of skiing for eight hours a day. We ate all sorts, even cups of butter. These expeditions are brilliant for dieting, I lost a stone and a half. You can burn 9,000 to 10,000 calories a day.

When Ben and James were racing they’d go for 36 hours sometimes. If you need to go to the toilet you dig a hole and go as quickly as you can. You don’t take anything that is non-bio-degradable. They’re clean zones - at the South Pole you collect your waste and bring it back with you. In your tent you have a pee bottle - in Antarctica James Cracknell got his bottles mixed up! Everest has a big problem with waste. There are glacier streams feeding nearby villages so everything is collected, and you can only go to the toilet in certain places. These are pristine environments, you can’t go there and leave mess.

I’ve done a lot of warm stuff too! In 2003 I went to Death Valley in the US with Kate Humble and spent five weeks living there in 50 degree heat. In 2011 I was asked to make a programme in the Empty Quarter, the largest sand desert in the world, based on the journey of Wilfred Thesiger. We were with ex-Ghurka officer Adrian Hayes, following him 1,500 miles across the desert. Riding camels was the most uncomfortable thing you’ll ever do in your life. They’re very funny animals but they can bite.

I’d always wanted to go to Mongolia and went this year to make "In Search of Nomads" with Kate Humble, who is a very good friend and lives nearby. I’d love to go to Patagonia, and I've a hankering to climb Everest but my wife has said no. My poor wife, she has put up with so much and I’m incredibly lucky. I’ve got to do so many amazing things and I wouldn’t have done it without my wife and family. Jo's been wonderful, she’s written a book.

In between I sometimes do work with Bear Grylls too, I went on his first trip to the Himalayas in 2007 when he flew above Everest with a parachute.

You've got to be fit to go running up and down mountains so I stay half-marathon fit the whole time. But I love a G&T and food. My wife and I like watching dramas and dog walking. I'd love to go to Siberia and I have a fascination with Russia. That's top of the list.