Dwayne Fields, explorer
3/29/202651 min
Dwayne Fields is an explorer and broadcaster who was appointed the UK’s Chief Scout in 2024. He is the first black Briton to reach the Magnetic North Pole. His television work includes fronting the series 7 Toughest Days and co-presenting Endurance: Race to the Pole, and Expedition: Search for the Nile, with fellow adventurer Ben Fogle.
Dwayne was born in Jamaica and was brought up by his great-grandmother for the first few years of his life. When he was six he moved to north London to live with his mother. He struggled to adapt to his new surroundings until he found his way to a Cub Scouts meeting where he experienced a sense of belonging for the first time since his arrival.
As a teenager, he grew up surrounded by gang violence and experienced a serious knife attack when he was 19. A few years later, during a heated confrontation, he had a gun pointed at him. The gun misfired twice and he survived. This shocking incident spurred Dwayne to change his life and challenge himself to inspire other young people to do the same.
In 2010, he walked 400 nautical miles to reach the Magnetic North Pole. In 2019, he co‑founded the WeTwo Foundation with explorer and wild camper Phoebe Smith. The Foundation gives young people from challenging backgrounds the chance to experience life‑changing adventures
Dwayne lives in Peterborough with his wife Angelique, and their five children.
DISC ONE: Three Little Birds - Bob Marley And The Wailers DISC TWO: Dance With My Father - Luther Vandross DISC THREE: I Miss You - DMX feat. Faith Evans DISC FOUR: The Loco-motion - Kylie Minogue DISC FIVE: Here I Come - Dennis Brown DISC SIX: You’re the Apple of My Eye - Louis Armstrong and Velma Middleton DISC SEVEN: Roar - Katy Perry DISC EIGHT: I'm Still Standing - Elton John
BOOK CHOICE: The Untold Railway Stories: Celebrating 200 Years of Passenger Railways edited by Monisha Rajesh LUXURY ITEM: A multi-functional pocket knife CASTAWAY'S FAVOURITE: Three Little Birds - Bob Marley And The Wailers
Presenter: Lauren Laverne Producer: Paula McGinley
Clips
Showing 10 of 11Transcript preview
First 90 secondsLauren Laverne· Host0:00
Hello, I'm Lauren Laverne, and this is the Desert Island Discs podcast from BBC Radio 4. Every week I ask my guests to choose the eight tracks, book, and luxury that they'd want to take with them if they were cast away to a desert island. For rights reasons, the music's shorter than on the original broadcast, but you can find a version with longer music tracks on BBC Sounds. Listeners will also get access to episodes twenty-eight days earlier than everyone else. I hope you enjoy listening. [waves crashing] [instrumental music] My castaway this week is the explorer and the UK's Chief Scout, Dwayne Fields. His expeditions have taken him from the deserts of Oman to the rainforests of Gabon via the Arctic. He's the first Black Briton to reach the magnetic North Pole, has made TV programs charting his adventures all over the world, and co-created the WeToo Foundation to take young people from challenging backgrounds like his on life-changing adventures. He was born in Jamaica, where he spent his early years happily exploring the countryside under his granny's care. But when he was six, he found himself uprooted and unhappily replanted in Hackney, wondering where the trees had gone. He found refuge at his local Cub