The world's most travelled man came home to Devon a few days ago, adding to the staggering 15 million miles already notched up on his passport.

Fred Finn is officially recognised by the record books as travelling the greatest distance on this planet and that total is ever-increasing. On this occasion he set off from his home in the Ukraine, went via London and finally arrived to visit his family in Exmouth.

I spoke to him in Plymouth and discovered a man who has a passport the size of a concertina file.

"Not a bad journey today," said Fred with a slight grin. "Although I find it amazing that I can speak to you from my home in the Ukraine, speak to you from a moving car in Moldova, even send a message from a customs border post in Hungary but lost my signal on the mobile phone in Tiverton. Anyway, I have added another 1,534 miles today and will be whizzing around England clocking up even more on this visit."

Where did this lifetime journey start? When did you get the bug for travel?

"It was in 1958 when I took a flight out of what was then Blackbush airport. It was a flight to New York and it took 18 hours. The fastest I have ever done it on Concorde was two hours 59 minutes, it would have been seven minutes shorter but we had to circle at Heathrow."

Concorde played a big part in your life.

"Yes, well that is why I am here in Great Britain… I'll explain later. I have completed 718 trips on that beautiful bird, starting on the return trip of its maiden voyage to Washington on May 26, 1976. She wasn't allowed into New York at the time but it saved me eight hours of time. Using Concorde meant that I could be back in London in the morning and off to say Kenya by the afternoon. I was working for a pencil manufacturer, setting up factories all over the world. Some people may criticise my carbon footprint but my company was using synthetic goods to make the pencils and stopping the use of trees."

That's a pretty slim excuse!

"I tell you this and it's a fact. Nearly all pencils at the time were made from red cedar trees in Tennessee and the amount of wood that had to be chopped down was staggering. In fact they ran out of it and started to recycling things like farmers' fences. Shelbyville was the capital of pencil manufacturing worldwide – something like 17 factories churned them out. I took pencil plants into a load of third world countries, bringing a lot of employment and popularised the use of wood alternatives, so I hope I did my bit. Concorde saved me time and money – no hotel bills, no jet lag and I could cover more countries."

Any more bizarre facts?

"I always sat in the same seat on every trip: 9a. Actually I must admit that occasionally the pilot would let me sit on the jump seat in the cockpit and at times I could speak to the other pilots of the other passing Concordes which was a little mind-blowing as our approaching speed was 46 miles a second. I never got my head around how the radio worked. You are travelling at twice the speed of sound! How does a voice on the radio reach your ears faster than the speed of sound because if… well, you know what I mean!" Fred changes back to the original subject, having confused me and him. "There was only one occasion that I failed to get 9a as a seat and that ended in disaster. I was sat at the rear of the aircraft and the man who had got 'my' seat was stabbed by a fellow passenger! I am not going to go into the entire story but that was weird."

Your family is still in Devon?

"Yes, my sister is still in Exmouth and my daughter is not far away from her. Well, actually she is far away at the moment as like father, like daughter, she left for Hong Kong on the day I turned up."

So, how many countries have you been to and what was your last major trip?

"It's now 139, some countries aren't there anymore but my last big journey was a drive from where I live in the Ukraine to Budapest to Zargreb to Montenegro, got fed up with that place, not for me, so I went back to Croatia and stayed in Dubrovnik which is beautiful with fantastic people, very friendly and welcoming…..and then back to the Ukraine before coming here. I will then take a trip up to Filton near Bristol to see the team at the Concorde exhibit before flying out to Jersey to see my old friend Geoffrey Boycott. I used to play cricket at a fairly high level and in fact the last time I was in Plymouth for any length of time was in 1968 with the International Cricket Crusaders with Basil D'oliveira and Gary Sobers. However, I will be back soon as on this trip I have rediscovered Devon, which has been fantastic."