he has captained england, won a golden boot and led leeds rhinos to win three consecutive super league titles, but speaking on radio 4's desert island discs, kevin sinfield says his greatest achievement is something much more personal. certainly proud of that finalseason, probably all the trophies i was involved in, they are special, but the nice thing, because we had the perfect ending, and there were two other players who were great friends, it allowed me to close the book on my playing career and i won't say satisfied, but content from that 11—year—old kid who decided he would love to be a rugby player for his career, to be able to live that dream, and then be able to close the book, how it finished was incredible, and the thing they are most proud

of is the friendships, that i'm most proud of. how could you not be proud of this friendship? from the moment his former team—mate rob burrow was diagnosed with motor neuron disease in 2018, he was determined to do what he could to raise awareness. for him, and what he is going through, what the family are going through, i wanted to show them that i cared, and it sounds daft that you are doing it to show someone that you care, because you should be with them, and i see him as often as i can, spend time with him but also i want to show him that i'm trying to do my best to raise awareness, i want to show him that we will continue to do our best to try to find the cure in this that slows us down, because of the terrible disease. in the past two years he has raised millions by running seven marathons in seven days and last november 101 miles in just 2a hours. but he is not stopping there.

what have you got next? that team that started out two years ago, it is still intact with a few more added on. and on the last year we were able to put two sports together, rugby league in rugby union, and bbc breakfast did a greatjob of championing three wonderful men from three different sports, and we will combine the three of them and we will run to some famous sports grounds that meant a lot to all three, so we will run seven ultra marathons in seven days starting in edinburgh and finishing at the rugby league world cup final, hopefully at half—time in the men's game. he is hoping to finish that challenge next month and show the world that he is not afraid to push himself to the limits for his friends. all all the you can listen to kevin's full chat with lauren laverne on radio

4's desert island discs. on bbc sounds. now it's time for a look at the weather. let's cross the newsroom to nick miller. hello. whilst it's another day of sunshine to the south and east of the country, gathering dark clouds, wind and rain to the north, and the west, that rain, strong to gale force winds across northern ireland in the west of scotland as we start the afternoon. rain as we start the afternoon. clears another nine this evening rain clears another nine this evening and from scotland, keeping showers into western scotland and windy overnight the rest of today, tonight, northern scotland with costs of 50 to 60 males per hour. the rain gradually moving southward through wales and england overnight and into east anglia and the south east for the morning, clearing the far south east by the end of

tomorrow morning. tomorrow, plenty of sunshine out there. further showers into northern and western scotland, you may catch one in northern ireland, north—west england, maybe the midlands, but for many places, it stays dry and the wind slowly easing in northern scotland. hello, this is bbc news. the headlines: police in ireland have named the ten people who died in an explosion at a petrol station in donegal — among them, robert garwe and his five—year—old daughter, shauna. russia investigates how, and what, caused the explosion that severely damaged its state—of—the—art — and well—defended — bridge to crimea. officials in the ukrainian city of zaporizhzia say 17 people have been killed by a russian missile strike on an apartment block. former uk culture secretary nadine dorries says prime minister liz truss needs to change course, if she wants

to keep the party together and avoid facing a "wipeout" at the next general election. in iran, protestors appear to hack into state—run television, as demonstrations against the regime continue. now on bbc news, the travel show. yeah, all checked, triple checked. metal clanking radio: science team, | are you a go or no go? science says go. radio: rangers, go for launch. there will be a time when people will go to space at much less cost and very regularly.

i think the same things going to happen going underwater. it's going to get less expensive and much more accessible. radio: go for launch. this is the point of no return. if there was any point to freak out, now would be the point to freak out. this is an experimental sub. people are informed that it's very dangerous down there. am i spinning? yes. oh, my god. and scott is like, "oh, no, we have a problem." i was thinking, "we're not going to make it! we can't go anywhere but go in circles!" ijust need to get there. radio: can you hear? do we have communications?

so this is an actual menu from the titanic itself, on the day it actually sank, and i very strangely came across it in a very small auction in ireland. radio: go ahead. yes, sir. secure the anchor. phone rings hello? so, i've heard the comparison. like, at titanic depth, it would be like having an aircraft carrier sitting on the sub. it gives you an idea of how much pressure there really is. that's my mexican flag. this is the white star line pin, a titanic expedition pin. - radio: go ahead. yes, sir. radio: roger that, go ahead. the ship was made in norway, so most

of the medications are norwegian, but there are also non—us medications, so it's like going to an ikea in france — everything is in metric and it's in french and it's completely confusing, because it's ikea to start with. i have a titanic patch from the expedition. this is just the titanic, the jacket patch. laughter yes. people are so enthralled with titanic that it became a must—do dive. i read an article that said there are three words in the english language that are known throughout the planet, and that's coca—cola, god, and titanic. it'sjust such an interesting period of time that i got really interested in both the ship's history and the dreams of the ship,

but also, the people's history and their dreams as well. the titanic has always been - in my family, in terms of history. my father's from northern ireland, he was born in derry, _ he spent a lot of time in belfast. and growing up as a child, he always spoke about the titanic because, obviously, _ it was built in belfast. so, we've always had - what we call in irish "a gra" — which is a love for the whole history and the story - of the titanic, so i'm - really pleased to be here. i've been keeping myself very fit and watching my diet. _ i had covid a few years ago. in the meantime, i had a little| operation and everything else, and still got myself ready and prepared for this - because it means a lot to me. when i was a kid, nobody had found it, nobody knew where it was, so i decided that i was going to go find it, so i needed to study science and oceanography. my first week of college, they found it. somebody beat me to it. it was september 1st, 1985. there was a picture of a boiler

in black and white on television, and the dream...just crumbled. i switched my career to banking and i started searching for a way to go. i wasn't sure how i was going to get to titanic, but i knew i had to go. i'm not a millionaire. i've been saving money for a long, long time. i made a lot of sacrifices in my life to be able to go to titanic. i don't have a car. i didn't get married yet. i don't have children. and all of those decisions have been because i wanted to go to titanic. when i met stockton, i told him, "here's my money." he said, "wait a minute! "we haven't even built the sub!" applause

just quick orientation for the sub. this is a forward dome, which opens and closes. we have the pressure hole in the centre — that's 5—inch—thick carbon fibre. vertical and horizontal thrusters, you can see there. i like to tell people, "this is not your grandfather's submarine." it's got one button, and that's it. yeah, so we run the sub with this game controller. it's made by logitech, but it's basically a sony playstation—style controller. if you want to go forward, you press forward. if you want to go back, you press back. if you want to turn to the left, its like that. you want to turn to the right, you turn to the right. test at 12 volts. go ahead. i started off with a partly—finished home—build sub that i'd built myself. then i formed the business and acquired a sub that we modified heavily and sort of figured out

what we wanted. then we made the first level prototype of this, which was cyclops i, that was very similar but was a steel hull that already existed, but it had some of the similar electronics. and then, this was the ultimate version that we always wanted. so, just another additional backup. i it's a miracle it can do what itl does when you look at it there, because when you look at it, it is very small. _ it looks like it's put together with pieces of string. - but it's not, obviously. but it's exciting. in general, the biology theme is one of documenting biodiversity — that hasn't been done well on this wreck. there's sort of a race to try to understand the deep sea, which is the largest environment in the oceans and the most poorly explored. here, we're trying to give that experience, check off your box

to see the titanic but, at the same time, contribute to something that has a wider application. so, this is pretty typical of what we saw on the dive. you can see this black igneous rock, but look at the number of sponges, and that's what really hit us right away. i was asked by oceangate to be the chief scientist of their expeditions. that involves organising a science team and establishing long—term monitoring stations on the wreck. the earth is changing, the climate's changing. the deep sea drives the earth's climate. most of the oxygen that's produced comes from marine plankton, so changes in the ocean have a huge impact over the whole globe. the team always says, you know, there's no guarantee you're going to see the bow, there's no guarantee you're going to get down there, because there are so many variables, you know.

some are man—made, some are nature. sometimes, it's both put together. i was able to join the expedition last year. we took the dive and dove for about two hours and maybe 15 minutes or so. i heard we got within like two football fields of the titanic, and then suddenly, stockton says, "oh, we've got to turn around." and at first, i thought he was joking because we were over two hours into our expedition and so close to the bottom. but then, he explained one of the batteries kind of went kaput and we were having trouble using the electronic drops for the weights, so it would be hard for us to get back up to the surface. the stakes were quite high at that point. i was really intrigued with, like, ok, so we can't get to the site tonight, what are our options? we had discussed actually staying, just sleeping at the bottom of the ocean, in the submersible. we have special weights on the submersible that will dissolve after 2a hours, so they would just drop off and then we would be able to get up to the surface. that's one option.

we're down here for another 16 to 2a hours. we will drift down, we will hit the bottom. we'll have communications, we can talk to them. i'm fine with staying here. it's your call, stockton. it's renata and jaden, mostly. yeah, well... yeah, i'm fine with staying down here. i was all about sleeping in the submersible overnight. i think me and someone else were, but then the other half of the crew were not as happy about that. are you still pumping? yeah. what do you have, pressure—wise? 58. somehow, stocktown managed to hydraulic—pump it manually so gently that it was able to slowly release the weights. yeah, very good. we've retained our... wait a second. we are starting to come up. we are? yeah. 0k. we're definitely coming up. i think you did it, - stockton, you 98% did it. hey, there's some luck here! high five! high five on my count, yes, here we go.

ok, maybe a win—win. maybe. yeah, or maybe they want... this is why you want your pilot to be an engineer. l it's an open book here — if you have any questions about what's going on, about acoustic monitoring, about carbon fibre, or problems we had, rumours of problems we had, actual problems we had, you know, feel free to ask me, we're happy to show everything. we want everyone going into this fully informed. this is an experimental sub, this is a dangerous environment, it's 6000 psi. very few people have been down there, and so we want to make sure that you're going in with an open eye and understand what's going on. if you don't want to do it at any time, feel free to say, "hey, i want to take a pass," and we can work something out. you know, maybe bring you another year, or something else. but i really want to make sure that you're aware of all this.

on mission four, when we got to the surface — scott was piloting — we heard a really loud bang, not a soothing sound. no. but on the surface, as they will attest, almost every deep—diving sub makes a noise at some point. i don't know. i don't have expectations of how i'm going to feel. i know when i think about it, i cry, so there will probably be a lot of crying when i'm down there. um, but i don't know, we'll see. every night, before a dive, everyone gets together and draws on some of these styrofoam cups. they attach them to the submersible before they do the dive and go down. and when they go underwater, they are under lots of pressure and they compress. and when they come up, we have all these little, tiny mini cups.

so i think everyone does a bunch and brings them back to their friends and family as a little souvenir. so, my alarm just went off. it's about 3:30 in the morning. we're supposed to be on the back deck by liam, to start the process of loading up and everything. so, it's not very often i wake up this early, but it seems worth it for today. i was pretty grumpy waking up at 3:30, but when i think about the passengers who might�*ve also have woken up really early to catch their horse and carriage, or whatever, to take them to the dock, it made me feel

like a kinship with them and also kind of grounded me in what i was doing. the dome is open and i step up into the sub, um, you know, i get chatting with the fellow passengers — which is probably what the titanic passengers did, as they all kind of boarded at the same time. all right, happy day. i know i'm going to be seasick, so i sort of commandeered the front of it, so that i can get to the port hole. and then, the dome slowly, slowly closes in front of me. and i have this moment of, like, this is the point of no return.

i'm not claustrophobic by any means but, in that moment, i'm like, well, if there was any point to freak out, now would be the point to freak out. and i sort of did a — i do a gut check with myself, and i say, "nope, not freaking out." i'm actually excited. i think the nerves in the stomach was not of anxiety, it was of excitement. we're all comfortable, here in the sub. we've got the scrubber on, oxygen is flowing. and we're standing by for vacuum. in the last 35 years, i did 37 dives to the titanic. each expedition, you can see more and more. here, for example, the deck

of the ship collapsed on each other and step by step, they disappeared, and we can see through the deck. of course, the deterioration is bad but, at the same time, the wreck is like a sanctuary for the marine life. we're just in limbo now. just at the beginning of the roller—coaster. no turning back now. it's always interesting to get on the outside of the sub. you spend most of the time diving on the inside the sub, so it's a different tempo out here, different things happening. if we have a contaminated atmosphere here, we've got some smoke hoods. those are located directly below jaden, and we'll be getting those out and put them on as needed, if we have a contaminated atmosphere.

if you smell anything in the sub weird, let me know immediately. no two launches or recoveries are the same. there's always something different. and that's the problem — there's so much that can go wrong. it feels just like a ride at disneyland. this is part of the experience. you know, blake is a super—solid diver. i don't worry about him one bit. and his communication, he'll get you all communicating. should i worry about you? i haven't had another bad recovery. i worry about him when he's not in the water. he's breathing surface air. i'm sure not only i, but the other people with me will have mixed emotions when we go down. you're bound to have mixed emotions. i'd say quite strongly so.

it's in irish folklore, for want of a better word, you know, it was built in ireland, it was the biggest ship in the world, it was incredible, and it was its maiden voyage. i mean, it perished on its maiden voyage, effectively. you know, so it's... yeah, it's very poignant. you've got to think of those people. there were a lot of people — irish, english, from all over the world — and, you know, it's sad, there's no doubt it's tinged with sadness. all stations are reporting the dive is a go. please, stand by. soft music plays

the sub is in the water. machine beeps

to be honest, i'm so...

erm, ijust need to get there. even if it's just the debris field, i'll be very happy with just paying my respects in the debris field. for about 2.5 hours, we see nothing but darkness. and then, all of a sudden, you see the earth come up to you and it does feel like it is coming up to you, because you're descending so quickly. seeing the natural bottom of the ocean come up at you was sort of spectacular. we saw plates. a plate just came out — a big dinner plate, just sitting there on its own.

then we saw a wash—hand basin, with the taps still attached. and we were only about 300 metres, apparently, from the wreck. is something going on with my thrusters? um, i'm thrusting and nothing's happening. i don't know what's going on. one is thrusting forward, one of the thrusters is thrusting backwards right now. so, the only thing i can do right now is a 360. we're literally 300 metres from titanic and although we are in the debris field, we can't go anywhere but go in circles. oh, my god...

hello, contrast between the fine day across the south east of the uk and across the south east of the uk and a wet and windy one in the north—west. the rain will pull away from northern ireland to leave a dry and clear evening. moving now across more of scotland. and before dark, some of that towards north—west england, north—west wales. more of northern england and is as the evening goes on. quite pleasant after the chilly start in the sunshine towards the south east. clearing for much of scotland and northern ireland quite quickly this evening, the rain. then it moves south of the night through wales and england, may be not reaching the very sore south east until tomorrow evening. a milder night in the south, cooler across northern areas and throughout the rest of today, tonight and tomorrow morning across northern scotland and the northern and western earls, 15 to 60 mph gusts and showers moving on. rain clearing the south east by lunchtime tomorrow and most places having a dry, sunny day. showers into western

scotland, northern ireland, north—west england, north wales and perhaps north midlands.

this is bbc news. the latest headlines. russia investigates how and what caused the explosion that severely damaged its state—of—the—art and well defended bridge to crimea. officials in the ukrainian city of zaporizhzia say 17 people have been killed by a russian missile strike on an apartment block. former uk culture secretary nadine dorries says prime minister liz truss needs to change course if she wants to keep the party together and avoid facing a "wipe—out" at the next general election. i'm still one of the liz's biggest supporters, but you have to put that into the context of the fact that we are 30 points behind labour in the polls. police in ireland have named the ten people who died in an explosion