INTERVIEWING Brian Blessed is like standing in a whirlwind of words.

I asked one question at the start and for the next 25 minutes, Brian answered the question in as much as the answer started at the point where an answer would usual begin and then it rocketed off into a stratosphere of stories which were a delight to write down.

There was however in those 25 minutes a revelation which he said he had not told anyone before.

The ‘Paul on the road to Damascus’ moment was when Brian was answering the question “if there was one special day you could re-live over and over again which one would it be?”

He said: “I think it was the day when I was 14-years-old.

“I had an awakening, it was when I realised I didn’t have to admire explorers or view films, I could be a man and I could do these things.

“As any young boy I admired men those who were heroes like cricketers, mountaineers, boxers and cricketers.

“You never think you are going to get to such an age but then you do and you realise you can do the things your heroes have done as you are now a man.

“What would happen to me was I needed to be excused morning assembly as I would go into a coma.

“When I did I had a feeling of a deep spiritual understanding.

“It only lasted half a hour and I would be fine by the end.

“When I came to I could read everyone’s minds, I knew what they were thinking.

“It was marvellous, it was a feeling of clarity and happiness.

“It was from that moment I did not and do not fear death, I transcended it. I believe life is the final word.”

Brian said when he 27-years-old and in India, he was blessed and given the word and he told the guru blessing him, he had the word, he had it since he was 14-years-old.

The word I discovered was RAM and it is the one he uses when he meditates.

Spiritualism plays an important part in Brian’s life and one of the most spiritual people he has met and spent five days with is the Dalai Lama.

Brian said: “When you are with someone like this you change.

“When you are with them you become incredibly honest. You cannot lie and you change the way you behave. When I was with him I was always rude. I used to ask him through his translator about his sex life and he would roar with laughter while his translator nearly fainted.

“He would say Brian can ask what he likes as I find it most refreshing.

“I told him as Dalai Lama he was fortunate and unfortunate. Unfortunate in the sense he had lost kingdom (Tibet) but fortunate in the sense he could forgive his enemy (China).

“I asked him do you forgive them? And he said yes.”

Brian has been fortunate as he has worked with many great stars and appeared in what have become classic television shows and cult movies.

He started out on the small screen in Z Cars as PC “Fancy” Smith between 1962 and 1965.

In 1967 he took on the role of Porthos in a 10-part BBC adaptation of The Three Musketeers

And in 1976, he played Caesar Augustus in the highly acclaimed I Claudius.

But he while not greatest role, but the one he is associated with the most is as Prince Vultan of the Hawkmen in the Film Flash Gordon.

It is in this film he utters the never to be forgotten line: “GORDON’S ALIVE!”.

He regaled the tales of how he has said this line for HM Queen Elizabeth II, in front of a Russian crew (as well as singing with them the Song of the Volga Boatmen) whose submarine burst through the ice at the North Pole looking like something out of Red October; how he shouted it out for the Maasai warriors when he climbed Mount Kilimanjaro and bellowed it at all the Cabinet when David Cameron was Prime Minister.

In his own words, he said his life was 60 per cent exploring. 40 per cent acting.

When I spoke to him in September, he was 81-years-old and three week s later on October 9, he will be 82-years-old.

He shows no sign of stopping or slowing down.

Brian explained he has not time for anything to do with age.

He is tired of these adverts telling people to save for this or that or put down money for a funeral plan, he wants people to get out there and live their lives.

He said: “Every day I run three/four miles and can still lift 300lbs. I do not train for vanity I just do what I always have done.

“I have completed space training in Moscow having done 500 hours in the last three years and have also been training with NASA.

“My next big thing is to go on a butterfly expedition to find butterflies.

“When you are flying in Brazil you see flashes of blue light and this is butterflies thinking the plane is a predator and flashing an owl like face on the underside of their wings.”

Brian has in his own way forecast the future.

He predicated in 1963 there should be a woman being cast as Dr Who.

He said: “I was talking to Andrew Osbourne who was in charge of Dr Who and I said Dr Who sounded oriental with a surname like that.

“It was the time of Charlie Chan and I felt this character could be a very mysterious character. I also felt it would be a role a woman could play.

“My heroine was Hypatia (a Hellenistic Neoplatonist philosopher, astronomer, and mathematician, who lived in Alexandria, Egypt, then part of the Eastern Roman Empire).

“The strengthen of men has always been women.

“I have learnt so much from women including Ruth Wynn Owen (she was a drama teacher who taught Brian).”

One of the questions I did ask Brian was would he as an explorer like to find a hidden valley in the Himalayas such as Shangri-La.

This was a fictional location in the book and film Lost Horizon.

Brian said: “Everybody is looking for Shangri-La. We are children of stardust and this is where we should be heading in the future to the stars.”

And then we are back in Brain’s world of stories as he tells me he and Kenneth Branagh have chats once a week to chew the cud in his shed.

You can hear these and many more stories at Westlands in Yeovil on October 19. Tickets £26.50.

Buy online at westlandsyeovil.co.uk or call 01935 422884.