I WAS NEVER AN avid television viewer, even when I was on the television. If I did ever sit down and watch something, it would usually be a chick flick. There was something about romcoms that helped me relax and switch off. However, in 2001, a television show started that caught my attention, mainly because of its chief protagonist and co-creator.
Pop Idol came out on ITV and as a family we were interested because at the time Lou was taking her first steps towards a career in music. As a singer-songwriter the show went against all her beliefs, offering singers the chance of instant stardom without putting in the hard graft or learning the trade. My interest was mainly in the head judge, Simon Cowell, a fellow animal lover, who became the most famous man in the UK thanks to his brutally honest style of critique. He was a divisive figure. Like me, he was a version of Marmite; you either loved him or you hated him because he said exactly what he thought and he didn’t beat around the bush. He was the nation’s pantomime baddie. If you were obese and you couldn’t sing he’d tell you and often he didn’t bother with diplomacy. I liked the guy. And of course we shared a name, which in some roundabout way did not do me any harm. It was easier to get tables at restaurants and I could legitimately call myself ‘Simon Cowell, the man from the television programme’. Being older than him I could also lay claim to the name as I had it first, although over the years, as his profile went stratospheric, I inevitably became known as ‘the other Simon Cowell’. Apparently, he lived off Diet Coke and Marlboro Lights, like me, but I just wish I had his bank balance.
While I personally didn’t have the other Simon Cowell’s financial clout, Wildlife Aid did manage the monumental task of raising enough finances and resources to replace the ageing hospital unit, which was based in the front part of the house, with a new, purpose-built, state-of-the-art veterinary hospital outside in the grounds. It was opened in 2002 and was one of the best equipped hospitals for wildlife in the country. We had full digital X-ray facilities that were better than those of most vets. We had ultrasound and pathology equipment that allowed us to do blood tests. We had everything that commercial vets had and in some cases more. Much of the equipment was donated. Our X-ray machine cost £12,000 and was donated by Animal Friends, the insurance company. We also had two oxygenators, which were paid for by Exxon Mobil.
Some people would baulk at the idea of taking money from a company that operates in the oil sector, but in my opinion it is a question of degrees. If I was offered a million pounds by a vivisection company I wouldn’t take it, even if that offer was made without the requirement for publicity or endorsement. My red line is animal abuse. However, when it comes to other sectors you have to be pragmatic and look at offers on a case by case basis. If companies have money in ring-fenced charity funds, that money is going somewhere, so why not to us?
The whole subject of donations is a minefield. Should an animal welfare charity take donations from a pharmaceutical company that tests on animals? Some would say definitely not but where do those principles take you? Do you use their drugs on the animals you are trying to save? Do you refuse to buy their drugs even if they are the cheapest and most effective? Should companies test cosmetics on animals? Of course they shouldn’t. Should they test medicines on animals? If my child was dying and the one drug that was going to save her had been tested on animals, of course I’m going to want her to take it. It is a judgement call at the end of the day and, whatever your decisions, you will inevitably upset someone but you can’t let your own high principles become a straitjacket to your higher purpose. Running a charity is a long game and you have to give yourself all the advantages you can. To survive, charities have to engage with the corporate world and that inevitably creates grey areas.
The new hospital meant we needed to increase our veterinary cover. We used a pool of volunteer vets to staff the hospital and called in specialists when we needed certain surgical procedures. We also needed a permanent vet nurse qualified to carry out minor procedures, give injections and administrate and coordinate all the vet functions. Having a vet nurse would also help me on rescues. They could carry out first aid in situ, lessening the need to bring an animal back to the centre. The result would be more rescue releases, which was our ultimate goal.
Our first vet nurse was Sara Cowan. When she came in for an interview I explained to her that we were also filming a TV series and that, if she agreed, she would feature in it. She was slightly nervous about the prospect but agreed. She was very good at her job and was good company. She worked for us for seven years and came on countless rescues with me. We worked closely together and inevitably shared a lot of emotional scenes because of the nature of the work. It is far more difficult being a vet nurse with Wildlife Aid than anywhere else because they not only have to deal with a lot of patients, they also have to deal with animals that they have not seen before. There are no owners to explain medical histories. The vet nurses also have to deal with 320 volunteers who are all slightly nuts!
It is sometimes lonely work running the charity and treading the fine line between trying to keep things afloat, trying to keep the volunteers happy and staying true to my beliefs. Often, there is little thanks and much fire-fighting. In 2005, however, I was recognized for my work and was awarded an MBE for services to wildlife, which was an honour. One of the newspapers reported that the award was for ‘servicing wildlife’. I rang them up and demanded a correction, in case anyone thought I was a pervert.
I felt the award was as much for the volunteers who have made Wildlife Aid what it is as it was for me and so, rather than go to Buckingham Palace to receive it, I arranged for it to be awarded in a ceremony at the centre where everyone could be part of the occasion. I was delighted to be made an MBE and still hanker for the opportunity to get a platform where I can champion the environment. A lordship would be superb but perhaps I’d be better suited to a damehood – so I could throw gladioli at everyone!
By 2006 the production team felt that the series needed to step up a notch. The rescues were often dramatic but the animals and situations started to become familiar – after eighteen pigeons in a row we needed something fresh! We started to talk about making a foreign special. In truth, the motivation was nothing more than an effort to spice up the show and allow me the luxury of fulfilling a lifetime ambition of going on safari. I had always wanted to see animals such as lions and elephants in the wild and had never travelled very extensively. I’d been on holidays over the years but never anywhere particularly exotic.
Initially, Jim was sceptical. There were a lot of logistics involved in getting a camera crew and all our equipment abroad and we needed to cost things carefully. There was also no guarantee that we would get the right footage as we only had a set amount of time in which to film. In the UK, we could easily take our gear out and film everything every day; abroad, we had at best a week to get enough footage to make at least one episode. It took more arranging and that inevitably fell to Jim who, without the benefit of any local knowledge, had to do watertight research to make sure the whole thing worked.
I used my powers of persuasion.
‘Come on, Jim, we can have a holiday while we are there and if things go wrong we’ll wing it.’
Jim researched the best location, Zambia, and the best operator, Norman Carr Safaris. The company’s history and ethos fitted well with that of Wildlife Aid. Norman Carr established the first safari camp in the Luangwa Valley in 1950, back in the days when an African safari was a hunting experience. He developed the pioneering idea of taking people to look at animals and photograph them, rather than to shoot them. His first safari camp was set up in partnership with the local tribespeople and he involved them in the management of the wildlife, an idea that was way ahead of its time, encouraging the traditional owners of the natural resource to take responsibility for its usage. His pioneering approach proved to be the forerunner to a cornerstone of modern-day conservation policy.
We arranged to stay at Kapani Lodge, which was the company’s headquarters and Norman’s last home. It was located on the banks of one of the Luangwa River’s many ox-bow lagoons close to the main Mfuwe area of the South Luangwa, one of the finest national parks in Zambia. We planned out a shooting schedule and set out not only to show animals in the wild but also to highlight some of the perils they faced in the form of poaching and trapping. We had five days to film and while we were there also took a trip into South Africa where we filmed at another wildlife rescue centre.
We didn’t use local fixers like other television crews because we were producing the show ourselves. People in the animal conservation and rescue world tended to respect us because of what we did in the UK. I made sure that everyone who ever worked on Wildlife SOS shared my beliefs and the principle that the animal always comes first. All the team – Jim, Phil and Jason – would drop the equipment and help out if they were needed and didn’t think twice about getting involved in the hands-on stuff if needed. In the worldwide community of wildlife rescuers we were fellow nutcases. We were kindred spirits. We all loved what we did, we were all passionate and we all had that dark sense of humour.
We managed to juggle budgets and flew out for our first experience of international rescue, staying at a game lodge by the water’s edge in an idyllic part of Africa, close to nature. We were incredibly lucky when we got there because we were the only visitors. It was off-season and the company gave us our own driver and guides. We had a great time and saw some amazing stuff. Due to the limited timeframe we made sure we packed in as much as we could. Every day was like three days because we went out on safari in the morning, in the afternoon and again at night.
There was all manner of wildlife wandering around. On one occasion Jim went off to his bungalow in the dark after dinner and a few drinks. He had a torch to light his way. He came back white as a sheet a few minutes later. He’d encountered a hippo on the way, which was just standing there, blocking the path and looking at him. Hippos are attracted to light and can also be very aggressive so Jim switched off the torch and legged it back to the bar where he had a few more drinks and waited for the interloper to go on its way.
Personally, I found the whole experience was cathartic. I had watched plenty of documentaries about African wildlife on television but had no idea just how beautiful and moving it would be in real life. The screen doesn’t truly encapsulate what it is actually like: the sights, the colours, the sounds and the smells. I spent a lot of time in awe of it all. One day we sat by a watering hole, which had shrunk as it was the end of the dry season. There was a giraffe over on one side, a lion lying in cover on another side and a croc basking in the middle. All the animals had eaten and drunk and appeared to be enjoying the sun. It all fitted together. Everything had its space. It was amazing to watch nature in balance. Obviously, when the sun went down they all tried to kill each other but for that special moment they were all there in harmony.
The filming went well. We interviewed gamekeepers, conservationists and the local people who knew the animals best. We filmed a family of elephants in the Luangwa National Park. Every day they made a journey across a river to the other side of the park to forage and then, as the sun started to set, they went back to their original location. Many years ago, before the whole area became protected, the abundant food was in an unprotected part of the park. The elephants learned that poachers operated there at night so they would eat there in the day but go back to the safer area as it got dark. The behaviour was conditioned from hundreds of years ago.
On one occasion a bull elephant from the herd took an interest in our open jeep and wandered up to get a closer look. It was huge and cast a long shadow over us as it walked towards us. Although it didn’t charge, it certainly had the intention of checking us out. I couldn’t tell if it was aggressive or not so I took my cue from the reaction of the rifle-carrying guides who were with us. The fear on their faces indicated there was something wrong. In such situations I worked on the premise that the experts knew what they were doing and when they got twitchy, I got twitchy. Then one of the men started to go through his pockets to get bullets out to fire a warning shot, which did little to reassure me, especially when the chap dropped them on the floor. Scarily, the elephant got close enough to touch before it realized we were no threat and wandered off.
On another occasion we were in a vehicle in the middle of the savannah when an elephant saw us and suddenly started to flap its ears in an aggressive manner. It was a long way away but it was obvious that he’d noticed us. We did the same as we would do on any rescue where the animal was aggressive, and slowly reversed away.
The footage we got from Zambia and the excursion to South Africa was superb and added a new dimension to the format of the series. What most people didn’t realize was that there should have been a crew of about twenty people doing what our small team of three or four managed to do. We did everything between us, we did it well, we all cared about it and we all mucked in.
In a way, Zambia changed my life. Seeing animals as they should be seen – in the wild at a distance – reinforced my views on a range of wildlife issues. Just having the time to appreciate nature is so important. We don’t allow ourselves that luxury nowadays and inevitably we lose sight of the value of the natural world. It’s rare for people to sit in the garden for half an hour and experience the wildlife around them. Everyone is too busy to appreciate the world so we don’t notice it when it is in trouble. We’ll wake from this stupor one day and realize it has all gone.