Pole trek needs last explorer

Descendants of Sir Ernest Shackleton and his team are looking for a final budding explorer to complete their ancestors' journey to the South Pole.

Legend has it Sir Ernest recruited his expedition members with an advert promising "small wages", "constant danger" and a "doubtful safe return".

A century later, the new team wants someone with a "relentless passion to succeed" and a supply of "good jokes".

They will also have to be fit and their cup must always be "half-full".

Anglo-Irish Antarctic explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton, best known for leading the Endurance expedition of 1914-16, never made it to the South Pole.

But he came close to being the first on his 1908-1909 Nimrod mission.

Aiming to finish the job, the 21st century expedition is being led by Army Lt Col Henry Worsley, a relation of Frank Worsley, the skipper on Shackleton 's ship the Endurance.

Their 80-day trek leaves in October - exactly 100 years after the Nimrod expedition.

They will follow the same 900-mile route as their predecessors, and will face temperatures of -35C and headwinds of 50mph (80km/h).