Peter G. Drake

He was born in England but spent part of his school years in Southern Africa returning to Yorkshire to study Industrial Management at University.

He has led or been a member of 48 expeditions visiting 72 countries in five continents. He has driven overland from the UK. to Nepal to climb in the Himalayas, has twice crossed the Sahara to the River Niger and has followed the Nile route south to East Africa.

Although he has climbed and walked in the Arctic, Australia, USA. and Himalayas, the last 45 years have been spent mainly on expeditions in Africa and the Middle East. He has led a number of adult groups and young people’s expedition to Africa, USA., Australia and the Middle East.

He has been a member of the British Mountaineering Council Training Committee, Chairman of the Expedition Advisory Centre at the Royal Geographical Society and Chairman of the Expedition and Training Committee of the Young Explorers Trust. He has been Chairman of the Yorkshire Schools Exploring Society and Vice Chairman of the Young Explorers Trust and a member of the Council of the Brathay Exploration Group. In 1986 he was awarded a Churchill Fellowship to research and produce the Adventure Training Handbook for the East African Youth Service. He has been a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society since the 1960s and in 2001 he was awarded by The Royal Geographical Society, the Ness Award for services for Field Work on Expeditions in Africa, in 2010 the Stephenson Award for services to expeditions. He was awarded the MBE in the 2013 for services to youth expeditions.

He has written six books on expedition planning and the outdoors and contributed to two other books on travel and expeditions. He runs his own slide library and supplies these to a number of commercial organisations.

He is a member of the Outdoor Writers Guild and a member of the Institute of Personnel and Development. He has worked for the Scout Association for 36 years. He has also lectured part time at The University of Leeds in the Department of Sports Science. He gives lectures on the history, wildlife and people of Africa and the Middle East. For the last 8 years he has lectured on cruise ships about his travels.

He lives in the small Pennine village of Brockholes in the Last of the Summer Wine country in West Yorkshire with his wife and family.