Adrian Raeside

Adrian will be the special guest aboard Great Antarctic Explorers in December 2008. His grandfather, Sir Charles Wright, was the physicist and glaciologist on Robert Falcon Scott's ill-fated 1910-1913 expedition to reach the South Pole. Two of Adrian's great-uncles, Sir Raymond Priestley and Griffith Taylor, were also expedition members. How three members of Scott's expedition became relatives is a story in itself.

As custodian of his grandfather's journals, letters and artifacts from that historic expedition, Adrian will recount previously unknown details and observations he found while researching the book he is writing about his grandfather and the expedition. He will also present photographs of the expedition taken from his grandfather's private collection as well as cinematic footage taken by one of Antarctica's most famous photographers, Herbert Ponting.

Although he grew up surrounded by Antarctic memorabilia, Adrian has never visited the huts in the Ross Sea sector of Antarctica that played such a significant role in the lives of his grandfather and great-uncles. This journey to the Ross Sea will help Adrian put the finishing touches to the manuscript of the book, which will be published in 2010 to mark the centenary of Scott's expedition.

When he isn't writing books about his grandfather, Adrian is an internationally syndicated editorial cartoonist, creator of The Other Coast comic strip and the author of 12 humor books.