Climbing legend Hamish MacInnes has explored many of the world's highest ranges. Recognised as having developed modern mountain rescue in Scotland, he has been inducted into the Scottish Sporting Hall of Fame.

The life of the 88 year-old mountaineer is being celebrated in a new documentary. 'Final Ascent: The Legend of Hamish MacInnes' is hitting cinemas this Friday.

Ahead of the release, he spoke to Scotland Tonight at his home in Glencoe.

Here is an edited transcript of his interview.

Rona Dougall: Chris Bonington, your climbing companion, said you and he have been incredibly lucky over the years because you have lost so many friends, do you feel like you've been very lucky escaping death?

Hamish MacInnes: Yes, some of the early climbs I did with Chris were right on Buachaille Etive Mor. Even on that we were very lucky. I should have died because I was caught out for about 14 hours on a very steep pace. We've been very lucky, but both Chris and myself were good at assessing things. And we knew our capabilities. And he is my oldest climbing partner, alive, and vice versa. We've lost personally over probably 35 personal friends in the mountains. That's not counting rescue, where we've got hundreds.

Rona: You started climbing when you were just a really young lad, when your neighbour Bill took you up the mountains. What was that appealed to you right away?

Hamish: I saw him going off on his motorbike every Saturday, and I often wondered where he was going. And he said, "I'm going climbing". He had a rope on the back of his bike. And I said, "what are you going to climb?" and he said, "rocks and mountains". And he asked do you want to come up sometime, and I said yes. And that's how I started, on the back of his motorbike. I was very lucky because climbing in those days, the gear was very primitive. There was no nylon climbing ropes, or anything like that. And you climbed with tackety boots, or baseball boots. I didn't find it difficult at all.

Rona: And when you were just 23 or 24, you climbed or tried to climb Everest with a friend of yours, John Cunningham. Your expedition cost £40 or something, you didn't ask permission from anyone...

Hamish: Yes, there was no air travel then, it was just exotic. We went by boat. And the money we had to spend was £40. I went to a lecture in the Royal Geographical Rooms in Edinburgh, and Andrew Ross was there. And he told me, this was in the pub afterwards, that they left all the food there. A tonne a half of food in the western comb of Everest, and oxygen. And it was quite funny he says, "it's a bonanza for a Scotsman." And that's we went there because everything was there. Now, John Hunt's expedition, in the meantime, had gone there, and they used all that food. And Hillary and Tenzing climbed the mountain. So we had to abandon it then and we tried to climb another peak nearby but we got avalanched on that. We were lucky we weren't killed. It was an amazing adventure.

Rona: Considering how dangerous climbing is, the question is why did you do it?

Hamish: That's the kind of question people don't have an answer for. Just because you enjoy it. And both Chris and myself were very interested in doing new routes that people hadn't done before. And it's just a way of life. It's an obsession.

Rona: You'd describe it as an obsession, would you? You felt compelled to keep going back to the mountains no matter what happened?

Hamish: Yeah, I've been injured quite a few times, but I've been lucky.

Rona: You also worked on a couple of really major films, like 'The Eiger Sanction' and 'The Mission', with Robert De Niro. What was it like working with big stars like Clint Eastwood?

Hamish: Well he was a pretty tough character, Clint, and he would do all the climbing himself, quite dangerous stuff. But there was a serious aspect to this. I was back in Britain with my friends, Dougal Haston, another Scottish climber. He went out with Clint and several of my other friends as well. But I got a very bad injury, I got gas gangrene, and I should have died, I should have my leg off, if I didn't die. I had a call from Kleine Scheidegg, that's below the Eiger, asking if I could come over immediately, because of a death of a chap who used to be one of my instructors on the climb. The insurance company stopped the shoot, and it was costing a phenomenal amount of money. And I said, "well I can't walk, because I made a plate for my leg to protect it." He said "you don't have to walk, we've got four helicopters."

Rona: As well as climbing mountains you have done a lot to improve safety. You've designed metal ice axea and a foldable stretcher. Was this a real passion of yours?

Hamish: Yes, I was really interested in engineering and designing things. Years ago I designed an all metal ice axe, and I used that for years. We were on Ben Nevis one day, three chaps fell down the mountain. And the wooden ice axes broke. And I thought, this is silly, I mean I've got a metal ice axe here, it was a Reynolds tube one, it wasn't a special alloy I made later. And here I am with this, and it won't break. And I was determined to start manufacturing them. And I manufactured these, thousands. There's not a wooden axe made in the world now. Everywhere's got them.

Rona: The film 'The Final Ascent' talks about how you became ill, and you were sectioned, because the authorities thought you were a danger to yourself, and you were wrongly diagnosed with dementia. This film is about you clawing yourself back to full memory and recovery, how difficult was that for you? And looking back through all your films, that was a process, it must have been strange looking back on your life...

Hamish: It was certainly the most dramatic time in my life, I mean I didn't realise, until quite recently, I spent five years on treatment. I gradually got better. My memory returned after two years. And with the return of memory, I was curious, and I wanted to know what had happened. I had written, I don't know, about 40 books. I started rereading my books and other people's books, and seeing my films and other films, and gradually my memory has come back.

Rona: Do you regard your journey back to full recovery as one of the biggest challenges of your life?

Hamish: I don't think about it like that, it was something which I had to do. I had to get an understanding of what I had done. I have written several books, whilst, after the illness... And I am doing a big autobiography right now, with an international publishers. And that book is written, we just have to put it together. I'm looking forward to getting it done.