“They don’t make them like they used to” goes the hackneyed old phrase used by my dad when taking a cheap shot at the younger generation.

It’s the kind of thing he says after a news report about this country’s greatest living explorer – and special guest at Worthing’s Pavilion Theatre - Sir Ranulph Fiennes.

As a 28-year-old, I obviously take issue with the assertion.

Fiennes, despite having recently endured horrendous back problems during the completion of the so-called most extreme endurance event on the planet, the Marathon des Sables, is on fine form.

In conversation with friend Anton Bowring, he took the audience on a whirlwind look back at his incredible career.

From his wild days at Eton, to the Army, SAS, and then the far ends of the earth, one theme was constant – adventure.

Even at school he appeared to have been drawn to it. In one anecdote, he told how while studying as a teenager for A-Levels in Brighton, he would travel to Eastbourne’s Moira House Girls School where he would shuffle up a drainpipe to meet his girlfriend – and future wife – on the roof.

During the evening Fiennes took the audience from the top of Everest to the South Pole. He told of sawing off the ends of his fingers after becoming fed up with his frostbite and how he completed seven marathons in seven days on seven continents – just four months after a massive heart attack.

After spending two hours with the 71-year-old, I think my dad was right.

Four stars