Bear: It was Lara who christened me Bear, when she came to the hospital the day after I was born. My parents had chosen the name Edward, but Bear stuck - it even survived sergeant majors when I was in the army. Mum had suffered four miscarriages before I arrived. Lara is eight years older than me, so I more or less grew up as her toy.
We lived on the Isle of Wight, where Dad [Sir Michael Grylls] was the Conservative MP. Mum was busy being an MP's wife and happy to let Lara look after me. She paraded me like a monkey in front of her friends, and did masses of hands-on stuff like changing nappies. But then as I got older, she'd want me to bark like a seal for her pals, or she'd bribe me with 5p to eat an entire packet of raw bacon.
I expect Freud would have a field day analysing how I ended up doing this kind of work. Lara's brilliant fun, but I'm sure I started climbing when I was young just to get away from being bullied by her. She was very full on. Growing up with her was a mix of loving her fantastic enthusiasm and longing to escape to my own little sanctuary.
I craved peace and quiet, and when I was six I started building tree houses - somewhere I could go by myself. The Isle of Wight was a magical place to grow up, even in winter. And summers were like living in a holiday camp. It was a very outdoorsy life. Dad had been in the Royal Marines and he took me walking and climbing. It wasn't that I enjoyed being cold and scared, just that I loved hanging out with him. Lara did too, and even now she's a fantastic all-weather swimmer.
Lara went to North Foreland Lodge School on the mainland, and I remember being six and dropping her off at the beginning of term. In the holidays her girlfriends took turns to mother me, teaching me their wicked ways. Lara was quite wild at school because she had so many other things she wanted to do, and by the time I was 8 I was embarrassed by my 16-year-old sister with her purple clothes, multicoloured nails and mad hair. She was a product of the 1980s and in some ways she hasn't moved on. We all love her for that. She wasn't academic, but she was hugely popular. She's still best friends with some of the girls from school, and her best friends are my best friends - part of our big extended family.
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When I was an awkward, shy teenager Lara's boyfriends would come with her to visit me at school, bringing forbidden cigarettes and cool jackets. One time, before a school play, Lara persuaded me to shave off my hair. The headmaster called me a "troublesome egg".
When I left school I lived with Lara in Fulham for a year, running self-defence classes to earn a bit of money. Then I joined the army.
I knew Lara would do well. She left school at 17 to work in London for smart PR companies. Then after a couple of years she reckoned she could do it better herself and set up an interior-design PR agency. She often got into a muddle with finances, but her clients loved her, and she built up a successful business that she ran for 20 years before selling it a couple of years ago. Now, between being a fabulous wife, mother to three children and looking after four dogs, she's a qualified tennis coach - one of the few cardio-tennis specialists in the north of England. James, her husband, is quite traditional and
I expect he'd love Lara to be home more, baking cakes instead of burning the roast on Sundays. But then our mother was a hopeless housekeeper. We grew up in an untidy house, with little thought for health and safety. If we were hungry, we'd sometimes retrieve chops that had been thrown in the bin the previous day, wipe them off and declare them perfectly fine. These days I appreciate a calm and tidy environment - especially after I've been off in mud holes, digging latrines and living rough for one of my TV programmes. Shara, my wife, is cosier and more organised than Lara. We live on a boat in London, but we also own a tiny island off the Welsh coast. It's a great place for summer holidays, and our families love getting together there. We've no mains electricity and we have to collect rainwater on the roof. Lara's in her element there, diving off the rocks into the sea with her kids.
For all my sister's spirit, she gave me a hard time after I left the army and wanted to climb Everest when I was 23. "I can't believe you're doing it," she said. "It's so selfish. There's a one-in-six chance of you dying." Emotionally, it was hard, but as soon as I got back from a successful climb, she was back to the old Lara again with: "Hey, that's my brother!"
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I tend not to tell her a huge amount about anything dangerous I'm doing. But we're incredibly close, even more so since Dad died so suddenly in 2001. At least he saw two of Lara's children, and he was a wonderful grandfather. My greatest sadness is he never knew my three boys. Mum still lives on the Isle of Wight. It's been quite tough on Lara. and I text her from wherever I am. Three or four times a year I have to go, kicking and screaming, on press trips in America. My show, Man Vs Wild, is the No 1 cable programme in the States, so I can't go anywhere without bodyguards. Lara's ecstatic when I tell her I've met Posh or some celebrity, but I can't stand all that. I count the hours till I can get home to Shara and our boys. In December I'm taking Lara on a press trip to New York and Los Angeles so that she can share the madness - and deflect some of the heat from me. She'll love the glitz and glamour.
To me, she's the most gorgeous sister and friend. On her wedding day, when I was 22 and just out of the army, I took her husband, James, to one side and said: "Look after her - or I'll kill you!"
Lara: Until Bear was born I hated being an only child - I complained that I was a lonely child. It felt weird not having a brother or sister when all my friends had them. Bear's arrival was so exciting - once I'd got over the disappointment of him being a boy, because I'd wanted a sister. But the moment I set eyes on him, crying his eyes out in his crib, I thought: "That's my baby. I'm going to look after him." I picked him up, he stopped crying, and from then until he got too old I dragged him around everywhere. When I became a parent myself I realised how easy my mother had it with me there, only too willing to do anything for Bear. It gave her much more time to be with my father.
Bear was such a novelty. And he got used to being around my friends, who were so much older than him. He found kids of his own age quite boring. It was hard for us when I started boarding school at theage of 12. I'm sure that it was also a shock for my mother, who had to take over looking after Bear. My little brother has always been a real action man. I was a Brownie and a Girl Guide, but Bear was totally passionate about the great outdoors. He was also keen on James Bond and spy movies and I thought he might join MI5 or MI6. By the time he went to Eton I'd already left school, but I often visited him with my friends.
As my mother had had such a difficult time having a second child, she fussed over both of us. As a mother I'm the complete opposite. My husband would say I'm much too relaxed. I take them swimming in cold rivers and drive the boat when we go jet-skiing. My boys are 12 and 10 and they think Bear's brilliant - he's an absolute hero for them and their friends. And I think it's the most brilliantly clever idea to have appointed him Chief Scout.
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I've come to realise that my brother is the most sussed person I know. I gave him a hard time before he climbed Everest because I couldn't get my head round him doing something so selfish. I was frightened for him. But Bear has an inherent sense of what's really dangerous. He knows when to pull out. And he's extraordinarily practical. He's probably had a few close calls that have frightened him, but he's very brave. He has a great life, and since Dad died I worry much less about Bear. Dad's death, at 66, came totally out of the blue and was the worst thing that's ever happened to either of us. Since then I've realised life's too short and there's no point in worrying about Bear doing anything.
After Dad's death we had a lot to sort out, including dealing with high family emotions, which brought us even closer. But there's never been any sibling rivalry. One shared passion is tennis. Though I trained to be a tennis coach I doubt I could beat my brother now. He's too effing fit. And he winds me up, shouting: "Stop playing ladies' tennis, you're playing with a real man now!"
I'm very envious of the fun side of Bear's celebrity life in America. When I hear about the people he's met, I think my life is so boring. He makes me feel old. I can't wait to go with him to the States in December. He's mobbed over there, and I want to share the madness. It never ceases to amaze me how down to earth and unaffected by celebrity he is. He's happier at home, talking to somebody about boat maintenance.
I knew that when Bear fell in love it would be incredibly deeply and that he would want children. Shara, his wife, is brilliant. She had to share him with me when they first started going out. I'm sure she thought it was weird to meet a man who seemed to consult his sister before he did anything! And it was hard for me to accept that he'd met someone who was numero uno and who he loved more than me. I've had to take a back seat. But that's life. He's there for me if I need him and vice versa. I know our bond is strong.
Living Wild: the Ultimate Guide to Scouting and Fieldcraft (Channel 4 Books) by Bear Grylls is out now