A GWENT police officer will leave the force after 30 years to carry out the “unfinished business” of one of the world’s most famous explorers.

PC Stewart Stirling is to leave his job in the forensic collision investigation unit in November ready for two years of intensive training before following the footsteps of Sir Ernest Shackleton, who failed in his attempt to cross Antarctica.

He will join a party that is aiming to ski and kite-ski across the continent in 100 days, travelling 1,800 miles in temperatures that can get as low as –82.9 degrees centigrade and winds that can reach speeds of 186 mph.

The party of six will leave in November 2014 – the centenary year of Shackleton’s failed journey – with fundraising under way to cover the £1 million cost of the expedition following his planned route via the South Pole.

PC Stirling will be 50 when he departs, and said: “There is a big world out there, and after 30 years in the police I want to try something different.

All the attention is on the Olympics, but Shackleton was one of our great leaders and we want to finish his business.”

After hearing about recruitment on the radio he was shocked to be selected for an interview, and even more so when he beat hundreds of others to win a place in the party.

PC Stirling, from Chepstow, added: “Most people have footballers or pop stars for their heroes. I want to help show them there’s more to it.

We are ordinary people, but are following in the footsteps of one of the great explorers.”

Of those selected, he joked: “There are experienced adventurers and then me. I don’t see how I fit in.”

Scottish-born PC Stirling spent ten years in the Met and has been with Gwent Police for the last 20 years.

He was in the Territorial Army for ten years until 1999 and runs the Duke of Edinburgh Award scheme at Rougemont School, Newport, while he lists his greatest achievement as walking from the Atlantic coast to the Mediterranean in 48 days in 2007.

The training ahead includes completing the 430- mile Arctic Ultra Marathon next February and Arctic survival training in Norway in March and then Greenland.

For details or to get involved as a sponsor, visit www.south2014.com. PANEL The greats who crossed Antarctica AFTER Roald Armundsen was the first man to make it to the South Pole in 1911, Irish-born Sir Ernest Shackleton viewed a trans- Antarctic crossing as the last great polar journey.

However, his 1914 mission failed when his ship Endurance became trapped in an ice pack before the shore party could land.

In 1958 a party including Sir Edmund Hillary managed the feat with land vehicles, something emulated by Sir Ranulph Fiennes’ group in 1981.

Norwegian Boerge Ousland crossed the continent using a sail in 1997, while 33-year-old Brit Felicity Aston became the first person to travel across Antarctica using man-power, when she ski’d it earlier this year.