Doug Allan

Presenter0:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young. Thank you for downloading this podcast of Desert Island Discs from BBC Radio 4. For rights reasons the music choices are shorter than in the radio broadcast.

Presenter0:10

For more information about the programme, please visit bbc.co.uk slash radio four.

Presenter0:34

My castaway this week is the wildlife cameraman Doug Allen. He has spent thirty odd years capturing unique footage of animals in some of the most remote and least hospitable places on earth.

Presenter0:45

If you've watched fuzzy little polar bear cubs frolic in the frozen wilderness, or slick killer whales eerily circling their prey, chances are the spell binding footage is his. David Attenborough, a long time collaborator, describes his work simply as extraordinary.

Presenter1:02

A marine biologist, he first made a living diving into the icy rivers of Scotland, searching among the mussel beds for pearls, a useful early lesson in patience and coping with the extreme cold.

Presenter1:14

His subsequent dedication to a working life in the wilderness has bagged him a slew of baftas and emmies, but there has also been an emotional toll. He has coped with periods of depression and is twice divorced.

Presenter1:26

He says, big animals are my passion. I particularly love working with large mammals because they're intelligent and you can develop a relationship with them. You've also said, Doug Allen, that polar bears are among your favourites because they're these are your words big, sexy, charismatic animals that'll leech you if they get a chance. And I wondered in there with the big, sexy, charismatic and the leech you. That's almost the perfect combination for a wildlife camera person, is it?

Doug Allan1:52

I like big animals also because they're easier to focus on than small things scurrying around in in the undergrowth.

Presenter1:58

When you came into the studio today, I was thinking, well, what would my commentary be about Doug as he comes in? If I was filming him for a piece of wildlife footage. And you are ve you're compact, you look incredibly fit and agile. And you're quite muscly. You you like the feeling of being out there and being tired out by your environment, do you?

Doug Allan2:00

Who's the game?

Doug Allan2:17

Yeah, absolutely. That's what I like. And my uncle was a gymnast, so I got the kind of strength-power-to-weight ratio from that.

Presenter2:24

You filmed all over the world in hot places and cold places. I understand that you really prefer filming in cold places. Minus eighteen degrees is your preferred temperature. How are you going to be on a desert island then? It's hot, it's humid, it's sticky, there's no ice.

Doug Allan2:25

Yeah.

Doug Allan2:33

And

Doug Allan2:36

There's no well, there's some pretty remote islands in the poles. Maybe if you put me off on Peter the First Island I'd be fine. Where is that exactly? That's down in the Antarctic. That I think is one one of the most remote islands in the world.

Presenter2:44

Guys.

Presenter2:48

Okay. We we'll maybe negotiate over that. Uh we've got to fit the music in, of course, Doug Allen. Tell me about your first disc this morning.

Doug Allan2:53

Well, my first choice was Bruce Springsteen, singing Thunder Road. I kind of got to Springsteen a bit late on. I remember I first heard of him when I was in my second tour in the Antarctic, seventy eight, seventy nine, eighty. And

Doug Allan3:07

I just love this. I love Springsteen as a performer, it's fantastic. And and he had this wonderful simplicity where if he had problems he would just get in his car and drive away and everything was kind of solved. And Thunder Road

Doug Allan3:20

is full of that kind of feeling, and there was something about it that spoke to me about look, leave normality behind and get out there and do your own stuff.

Speaker 43:35

The screen door slam.

Speaker 43:37

Mary Dresway

Speaker 43:41

Like a vision she dances across the porch as the radio plays.

Speaker 43:48

Elberson singing for the lonely Hey, that's me and I want you only

Speaker 43:55

Don't turn me home again, I just can't face myself alone.

Presenter4:02

Bruce Springsteen singing Thunder Road. So, Doug Allen, you've spent prolonged periods at both poles. As I understand it, run about five winters and maybe ten summers in Antarctica, and as a result you are known as the Cold Man, the guy who they can send there who will get the pictures. You have said of the cold, though, that it will gnaw away at your soul. Describe that to me.

Doug Allan4:22

Well, in a lot of ways the soul, I suppose, in the sense that it certainly got a hold of my soul. I mean, the Antarctic was undoubtedly one of the formative experiences of my life working in the Antarctic. I first went to the Antarctic when I was only twenty-five, and that was to winter with twelve other people on a British Antarctic survey base, and I was a diver. And that's quite an experience, you know, because the average age I think was only about twenty-seven, twenty-eight. And we're really looking after each other and running the base and doing the research.

Presenter4:51

Is it then dealing with the practicalities of that extreme cold that begins to eat away at something deep inside?

Doug Allan4:59

You begin to just develop an attraction to the place or an attachment to it, which is unlike anywhere else, because you get so emotionally engaged with the place and the people when you're down there working for Bass, but then also filming. But then you have to leave it. You have to leave it completely behind because you can't live down there indefinitely. But at the same time, the experience that you need to enjoy yourself down there to cope with the cold and to read the animals and to do all the things that I've been lucky enough to do, it's like living your life in two halves, and so it it just leaves a big deep

Doug Allan5:33

impression on you?

Presenter5:34

You are a very successful and I think surely very driven man. You have let's just do a little roll call here seven Emmys, four BAFTAs, numerous awards from anybody who can give an award to you. What do you put that down to, that drive and that success?

Doug Allan5:39

Just

Doug Allan5:50

To be honest, I'd have to go back to when I was growing up as a twin.

Doug Allan5:54

My twin brother Ron and

Doug Allan5:58

We were lumped together as the twins, and I think I had a a big

Doug Allan6:02

issue with not being recognised as an individual in my own right, but also having very different inclinations from my brother, born in'fifty one'. So the school was a bit rigid over how it defined your success. Even back in those days, biology was a bit of a Cinderella science, and I never quite fitted in. And my talents I think lay more in artistic directions, but but it wasn't really didn't get a chance to go down those paths completely. Partly, I don't know, pressure from competing with Ron, I think, which all sounds kind of daft looking back on it, but I have to say it was there. Ron and I would play rugby together, cricket. He was usually the captain. But I think I partly got into diving because you can recognise a good, elegant diver. You know, they conserve their air, they move quietly through the seascape, they don't kick up the sand and all that sort of thing. It's not competitive, but I I could tell that here was something that I enjoyed being

Presenter7:01

Let's have another of your choices. Tell me about this, Doug, your second disc of the day. Part of

Doug Allan7:07

growing up and competing away with Ron at school and things was I did play the fool a lot. I was a bit anarchic and I maybe when I was ten, eleven I was bought this record, Spike Mulligan, for Christmas, and Spike's humour just absolutely appealed to me. They still make me laugh even today.

Speaker 17:25

Say bazonka every day. That's what my grandma used to say. It keeps at bay the Asian flu and both your elbows free from glue. So say bazonka every day. That's what my grandma used to say. Don't say it if your socks are dry or when the sun is in your eye. Never say it in the dark. The word you see emits a spark. Only say it in the day. That's what my grandma used to say.

Presenter7:53

That was Spike Milligan with Bazonka from Muses with Milligan. Still makes you laugh. I love the way he can't keep a straight face himself. I heard you say a fascinating thing once, that when you dived, when you were under the water, you felt like you were back where you belonged.

Doug Allan8:07

I've always had an affinity with water, and we were lucky to go on holiday with one of the early package deal holidays. So we went to the Mediterranean when I was probably about 11, 12, something like that. And of course, the Mediterranean is warm sea, clear sea. I just took to snorkeling and like a fish, you know, I could duck to water, and then took up the scuba later on. I just felt it.

Presenter8:28

Home in the sea. You were born in in fifty-one and you were one of five kids. A Mediterranean holiday then. There weren't many people around with five kids who could afford that then.

Doug Allan8:32

And you were one

Doug Allan8:37

And how come? I think my father had a very successful business. He was a photojournalist and um he he also had his own photographic shop in Dunfellman. Dad used to work virtually all the year, all the time. He was on call as a journalist. And his summer holidays for him and mum became important and I think they decided, Look, we've only got two weeks, let's make the most of it, let's go somewhere for guaranteed sunshine.

Presenter9:01

And he had something of the uh the entrepreneurial spirit, I understand. When he was a wedding photographer, he used to do something which must have been really ahead of its time. Explain to me how they would get the photographs developed and bring them back to the reception. Mum and Dad would be watching it.

Doug Allan9:14

And there was also his assistant, Ronnie Mills, and they would line up four or maybe even five weddings on a Saturday morning, and they would bring the film back to the shop, and it was all black and white in those days, and they'd run it through the processing process and run off a set of prints. And then Mum would take those prints down to the reception in the afternoon and the evening, when all the guests are there, and go round and collect orders for the prints. You got a lot more orders for prints then than if you kind of said come into the shop on Monday and we'll show you them then. And in fact, having covered a wedding once for dad, I would rough her face up to a polar bear.

Presenter9:52

Then the mother of the bride

Doug Allan9:53

Exactly.

Presenter9:56

Um you say that your father was into photojournalism and and he would supply a lot of pictures for what it was it the Dundee Curry or the other?

Doug Allan10:00

But I would

Doug Allan10:02

He was a stringer, so he would he would supply it for whoever. And I remember sometimes when I learned to drive, Dad would give us a call and say, Can you run some pictures down to a scythe and put them on Red Star delivery on the train to get them across to the Edinburgh Evening News for the late night edition or something like that.

Presenter10:03

But

Doug Allan10:18

Yeah.

Presenter10:18

More in a second. For now, Doug, tell me about your search. What are we gonna hear?

Doug Allan10:22

My mum and dad really loved each other. You know, dad would come and he'd always have a hug and a kiss. And that was after they'd been married for ten, twelve years or longer. And Dad was a pretty good singer in his day, completely self-taught, so to speak. But his big hero was Ben Crosby and Frank Sinatra. He used to really sing along with them. And I remember him singing this, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? with mum kind of duetting, but mum wasn't as confident a singer, let's say. But I remember Dad singing this in the kitchen, around the house, and when we were driving places.

Speaker 410:55

Who wants to be a millionaire?

Speaker 410:58

I don't. Who wants uranium to spend? I don't. Who wants to journey on a gigantic yacht? Do I want a yacht? Oh, oh, I do not.

Speaker 411:13

Who wants a fancy foreign car? Yeah, I do. Who wants to tire of caviar? Who wants a marble swimming?

Presenter11:25

That was Frank Sinatra and Celeste Holmes from High Society singing Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. So, Doug Allen, that period went towards the end of school and you knew that you were interested in science, you loved to dive, and you thought that

Speaker 111:36

Yeah.

Doug Allan11:36

In science,

Speaker 111:37

Uh

Doug Allan11:37

Yeah.

Presenter11:39

Probably marine biology is where I can, what did you think, make a living or have an interesting life or

Doug Allan11:44

I've never looked more than three or four years ahead in my life at any one time. I've just looked to read that would be interesting, I'll do that. And it's always led on to something else. But I went to Sterling University and did a degree in biology with lots of marine biological interests. I learned that I wasn't out to be a scientist, but I loved diving and I loved understanding science and helping people collect data.

Presenter12:07

So the bench work watch is too boring for you.

Doug Allan12:09

It just wasn't me, yeah. I've read an article, an advert in the back of a dive magazine, which simply said Diver wanted for interesting work in Scottish rivers. I wrote, and that was how I met Bill Abernethy, who was then Scotland's last professional pearl fisherman, and I worked with Bill for a year.

Presenter12:25

It sounds um terrifically romantic, Doug Allen. Your first job was diving for pearls in Scottish river beds. I can imagine it was anything but that. Must have been freezing cold and damned hard work.

Doug Allan12:34

Okay.

Presenter12:34

It was

Doug Allan12:35

It was good for toughening up. It was hard physical work. And the secret to our success was Bill knew where to go. There are pearl mussels scattered through many Scottish rivers, but you have to know the specific bend of the river or where on that bend is going to have the mussels which have the pearls in them. And how did Did he know that you were the young man for the job?

Doug Allan12:56

He had had someone working with him for about nine months, but that person had left. Bill did try. Someone else had responded to his advertisement in the that he put in the dive magazine. But Bill um made one dive with this guy and apparently he nearly drowned. So

Presenter13:10

They'll kicked him out. I'll ask you more about that in just a second. For now, let's fit in some more of your discs. We're on your fourth.

Doug Allan13:17

Vocal Hero is a fantastic film. It's so Scottish, so understated, so wonderful, and the soundtrack by Martin Ops for Dire Straits, I just love this wild theme because I think that's the one that would I'd most like to sit on the shore of my desert island as a sunset going down and have this lovely evocative no words theme going on in the background.

Presenter14:13

That was the wild theme from the soundtrack to Local Hero by Mark Knopfler. And how much money can you make fishing for pearls in Scottish rivers? Not much, I imagine.

Doug Allan14:21

What we would do, we'd fish for a while, maybe, you know, three or four weeks or so, and then we would take our catch into Cairn Cross, the jeweller in Perth, who specialised in freshwater pearls. It was a great ritual. We'd go in and Bill would keep the pearls in a wee medicine bottle with a bit of tea water. Bill would pull these pearls into his hand,'cause you had a wee pile by that time, and James Cairn Cross would take out a piece of green base and put it on the table, and we'd put this thing down, and there'd be a bit of poking around them with your fingers. And James would say, There's some nice ones in there, aren't there? And we would then leave for an hour, and when we came back after an hour, James would have separated the pearls into three or four batches from the very best at one end to the not-so-good quality at the other one. And Bill and I might have eight hundred, a thousand pounds to split between us after five or six weeks' work, and Bill would take some of the expenses out. I remember I was paying. Hold on a second, you say expenses. Did you not used to sleep in the back of his Cortina? Yeah, we slept.

Presenter15:10

Compelled.

Presenter15:13

Wait, you said hold on a second.

Presenter15:18

So how did you get then from pearl diving in Scotland to filming polar bears in the Arctic?

Doug Allan15:27

After the pearl diving I got a job in the Red Sea. I went out and helped some biologists. I ran a dive school in Jersey and then I read an article about a diver who'd just come back from the Antarctic. And so I wrote to the Antarctic Survey and asked them about this job and actually got an interview for the job. I actually failed the interview, but then I was asked to go back to the Red Sea and I was actually in the Red Sea when a telegram came through from the Antarctic Survey saying we have an unexpected vacancy. Would you like to go to the Antarctic? I did one winter first of all, then came back to the UK and decided to go down again, went down and did another two winters.

Presenter16:03

Because of the sort of T V programmes that you've made, you know, about mammals, things like the frozen planet and so on and so on, we sort of have an idea now of the kind of life that you have to live when you're out there doing this filming. But in the nineteen seventies it must all have been brand new to you. I mean, can you give for example communications, how much did you could you make phone calls?

Doug Allan16:06

Yeah.

Doug Allan16:09

Yeah.

Speaker 116:09

Uh

Speaker 116:14

When you're out there

Speaker 116:15

Filming b

Doug Allan16:22

Could you make phone calls? Well bear in mind that before I began filming I was working for the British Antarctic Survey who had been who have run research bases in the Antarctic since the fifties. And so I was a member of one of those bases. Our communication was by telex, this was before faxies even. And all the tele telex communication would go from the base to Stanley in the Falkland Islands and then be relayed back to UK. We were allowed two hundred words a month communication back to UK and two hundred words in.

Doug Allan16:53

I feel sorry for people whose first inclination on arriving in a new town is where's the internet calf? Let me update my Facebook account. Let me do this. Because I think, and to some extent the same happens when I'm filming. When I'm away, I like to immerse myself in the environment. And so I don't want to be reminding the way of what's going on back home, because I think you can have a fuller immersive experience in the environment and the animals if you're not thinking about home too much. On that note, let's have some more music. Tell me about this, your fifth. American Tune. Well, I think Paul Simon is probably the best singer-songwriter I think around. I'm looking through my collection and they kind of have a wistful air about them, don't they? Yes, they do. And that's partly because I can sing along with wistful songs to some extent. But they also have this faint echo of loneliness in them, don't they, a wee bit? And about relationships to people and fathers with their sons and things like that. And Paul Simon does write some lovely lyrics. And this one just talks about loneliness, and it's very simple. And I would just like to have this one to listen to.

Speaker 117:39

They talk about them, don't they?

Presenter18:08

Uh

Speaker 418:08

Many's the time I've been staying there And many times confused

Speaker 418:19

Yes, and I've often felt for sickening.

Speaker 418:25

Answer ten lane misuse

Speaker 418:30

Mom and I am already

Speaker 418:34

I'm alright.

Speaker 418:36

Uh

Presenter18:36

Yeah.

Speaker 418:36

Just weary

Presenter18:42

That was Paul Simon with part of American Tune. And as you said, just introducing that, Doug Allen, a lot of your tunes today have a sort of a wistful sensibility to them. You know, they're they're looking at uh

Speaker 118:50

You know that

Presenter18:52

what it is to be human, they're looking at loneliness, they're they have a perspective about leaving things behind. And during that piece of music you were talking to me about this period in your life when you were in Antarctica and you said it suited you very well because you you really were separate from your family for a period of how long, about eighteen years?

Doug Allan19:05

You're fine.

Doug Allan19:07

Well, really, I I didn't have much to do with my family from from leaving university. That was in seventy three through until

Doug Allan19:15

Well, even after my mother died, you know, eighty seven, eighty eight was when I began to refine my my brothers and sisters and things like that. And and I think it took me that long to really feel like I was, you know, a whole person or a different person. And it but it was strange'cause a lot of that different person was based on experiences in the Antarctic which were so outlandish and weird to people that I was different after it.

Presenter19:41

And it was what the time and the space and the pace that enabled you just to think about what motivated you and who you were.

Doug Allan19:47

Pot

Doug Allan19:49

The big thing about the Antarctic for me was being an important cog in quite a in a small wheel. And it's really important that you get on with people, that you support them. So it's it's like an extended family in a funny sort of way. I felt more at home there than I had felt at home.

Presenter20:03

What did you understand about yourself after that prolonged period that you hadn't before?

Doug Allan20:10

It gave me a sense of.

Doug Allan20:13

belonging and my own worth. As the diver, I was the only diver, I was doing something, I was helping people. But at the same time, my experience was useful and made the other people's work more efficient, that sort of thing. I just guess I wanted to feel special.

Presenter20:30

And during that period your mother was diagnosed with cancer and was very, very ill. Did were there was there time to go home?

Doug Allan20:32

was very very ill did work

Doug Allan20:35

When I left in November 1982, I think if people had been honest, very honest with me, I've got a feeling they would have said, Look, the chances are your mother won't be alive when we come back. But nobody really said that and I didn't think about it, and

Doug Allan20:53

I wonder what would have happened if I had been told that, whether I would have decided to stay back. I don't think I would have,'cause my father probably would have said, Look, we don't know. She died about a month after the ship left, and when the ship left that we weren't going to see another ship for ten months. You know, there's nothing I could do about getting out and I heard about it through a telegram.

Presenter21:14

And you didn't go home then obviously for her funeral. You couldn't you couldn't go home for her funeral.

Doug Allan21:16

No, no, I can go for a flow. No, no, no, no. No.

Presenter21:19

Let's have some more music then. We're going to have your sixth. Tell me about this.

Doug Allan21:24

There's a wonderful new woman in my life, and this one reminded me of her immediately.

Speaker 421:49

It's late in the evening

Speaker 421:57

Wondering what clothes to wear Uh

Presenter22:01

That was Eric Clapton and Wonderful Tonight. I wonder, Doug Allen, when you get back home from these great prolonged expeditions, can you settle back easily into a routine?

Doug Allan22:13

I think when I come back, yeah, I think I can get on pretty well. Although, if it's been a really successful shoot and you realize that possibly you have had an experience that you won't get the chance to do again, then of course you leave it behind with a certain bit of wistfulness. It's funny, at the end of big productions, which have gone really well, and I remember Blue Planet being like this, when the final shoot came in, we all sort of realised that we'd had a great team together for the better part of three years, and we'd all been working together, there hadn't been friction, it'd been full of passionate people, great editors, producers, all the rest of it. And we realised that this particular team would never come together again because we would just go and do different things. And that can be that can produce a bit of a downer for a wee while when you think what a great experience we all had.

Presenter23:02

Yeah.

Doug Allan23:02

I wondered that

Presenter23:02

About your downers because I've read, you know, you you're you're open and you talk about these things like you talk about all of your life, and and I I've read about them and

Doug Allan23:06

It's like you

Speaker 123:07

Pop.

Presenter23:11

I cannot work out when I'm reading about them if the reason that you go to these very remote places and live in extreme circumstances that would scupper most of us is because you feel a sense of depression with everyday life, or you end up having bouts of depression because you've had these extreme sets of circumstances. Is it even important which way round it is?

Doug Allan23:34

Well, I have suffered bouts of depression in my life, and I think they've been brought about partly by stress. You know, there was one bout in the Antarctic, and there's been, you know, one or two when I was back in UK. Leaving my first separating from my first wife, Liz, was hard because Liam was only a year and a half at the time. And, you know, I was.

Doug Allan23:57

working as a freelancer, etcetera, and there was a lot of things running through my mind and things, so that was difficult.

Doug Allan24:03

I think my mother suffered from depression.

Presenter24:05

Right.

Doug Allan24:06

So, I think it kind of does run in the family to some extent. It's been a while since I.

Doug Allan24:11

Had a bout. And I think, again, my sort of way to combat it in a way was to find out as much as I could about it. But I did have a very useful counselling session for quite a few weeks with someone where we talked it through and basically learned alternative reasons for feeling bad about yourself. You know, you feel bad about you feel you get or I got depressed when you begin to feel bad about yourself, unworthy, what have you. But then this woman said, Look, you know, you could think about yourself like that, or here's another way to look at it, you know.

Presenter24:44

And part of your self-worth, as you told me earlier, was tied up in this idea of being useful, of contributing to a team, of being the one single diver there, of being the person who can fix things. Indeed, David Attenborough himself, in a foreword to one of your books, wrote about how useful and practical you are to have around. If you are in Antarctica and you are suffering and struggling with depression.

Doug Allan24:51

Yeah the one single diver the

Speaker 124:52

Yeah.

Speaker 124:53

Yeah.

Presenter25:07

How does that work? How useful can you be?

Doug Allan25:09

Well, I was a real burden, I think, to the base, you know, in that particular year. In fact, it was them who supported me. Um, but it left me very bruised emotionally.

Presenter25:17

Pete.

Doug Allan25:18

Yeah.

Presenter25:18

Your creativity is phenomenal. It's one of the most interesting aspects of what you do, because here you are, this very practical person, you know, who can fix things and do things. And yet, your sensitivity not just to these great mammals that you work with, but also to the changes in light, to the shutter speed if you're doing stills, to whatever it is, you have a very, very sensitive nature. Do you sometimes feel

Speaker 125:35

To that

Speaker 125:37

But if you're doing stills to whatever

Presenter25:43

It's all a bit raw, but life is a you know, you're a bit too out there with all your nerve-endings on the show.

Doug Allan25:50

Light is the most important thing out in the poles. Really, you know, the light changes all the time from from day to day, from hour to hour, minute to minute. And I've learned to be very sensitive of it, to react to it, to get those magical little moments.

Doug Allan26:05

Everyone feels an affinity. There are camera men, camera women going around whose place, whose whose heart is in the savannah of Africa. You know, my heart just happens to be in in cold places, particularly in the Arctic and the Antarctic. It's just where I feel most alive.

Presenter26:23

Yeah.

Doug Allan26:23

Uh

Presenter26:23

Yeah.

Doug Allan26:23

Not a cold heart.

Presenter26:24

Yeah.

Doug Allan26:24

Yeah.

Presenter26:24

Let's hear your next one then, Doug Allen. We've got your seven.

Doug Allan26:25

See you get next

Doug Allan26:27

This one definitely reminds me of my son. When he was young, I wanted to keep him in touch with his Scottish cousins. So we would go to Scotland often and we would leave Bristol about eight o'clock at night, drive for four to five hours chatting and singing along with the radio until about twelve o'clock, one o'clock, and there's a little lay-by just off Shapp, as you over Shapp. You drive off the motorway, five minutes, you're tucked into a lay-by with hardly other traffic. And then we get the sleeping bags out, settle down in the back. Maybe I've brought a D V D, put it into the computer and sit and watch that and eat Maltezers. And then I would wake up at six. Liam would be sleeping in the back of the car. We'd be in Dunfern by nine. It's fine. We'd got to Scotland without losing a day of our holiday.

Doug Allan27:11

One of these trips, we had a cassette that someone had given us of Scottish music, which ran all the way from Jimmy Shand through to Marmalade, B City Rollers, and Jerry Rafferty. And I think Liam was only about four at the time, but all he wanted to hear was one side all the way through, turn it over, give me the other side, turn it back again. And I remember just being so pleased when.

Doug Allan27:34

As we approached the fourth road bridge, he joined in with Baker Street by Jerry Rafferty, which I thought for a four year old was pretty good.

Speaker 428:01

Winding your way down a bacon

Speaker 428:05

Light in your head and then on your feet well another crazy day

Speaker 428:12

Not a way

Presenter28:17

That was Jerry Rafferty in Baker Street, and as you said, going into that, Doug Allen, your four-year-old son, as he was then, could sing along rather impressively with that.

Doug Allan28:24

It was great.

Presenter28:25

You were 55 when you suffered, well, I understand it was a near-fatal brain hemorrhage. I don't know why you're laughing.

Doug Allan28:30

I don't know why you're laughing. Sorry. David Attenborough wrote to me when he heard about it. He said, Doug, it's rather remarkable to me that after all the close shaves you've had, you should be almost laid low by a trampoline in Wiltshire.

Doug Allan28:44

I was bouncing on one of these big trampoline things. I basically had a brain hemorrhage. I just conked out. I went totally unconscious. Very luckily there was an ambulance not far away dealing with another issue. And when they came over, they recognised it. They got the air ambulance in and I was whisked over to Frenchy Hospital.

Presenter29:02

So you had excellent care that indeed must have saved your life.

Doug Allan29:05

Yeah.

Presenter29:06

And yet just twelve weeks later you were diving again.

Doug Allan29:10

It was about that. I mean, I was lucky, I was treated by the surgeon who had pioneered this coiling technique ten or fifteen years earlier. And basically, I woke up twenty-four hours later with a very sore head and a pain in my groin, because they go in through your groin and they don't actually go into your head at all, or at least cut a hole in your head. And yeah, and it's such a straightforward procedure that within a month they can say, Okay, that's it, you're fine. And then there are no after effects. I can do everything that I did before.

Presenter29:40

What are some of the most dangerous circumstances you've been in professionally? Wh when has there been a point where you have laid the camera to one side and thought I must not think about the pictures now, I must think about my own safety?

Doug Allan29:52

Yeah.

Doug Allan29:53

I was grabbed by a walrus once when I was snorkeling, but I hit it on the head and it let me go. It was only later that I was told that that's how they hunt seals, and they kill seals by putting the walrus puts its lips down onto the seal's head and sucks its brains out. So it was a good job that they didn't do that.

Presenter30:09

Uh

Doug Allan30:09

The

Presenter30:09

But you were the same

Doug Allan30:10

I thought I was a seal, yes, yes.

Presenter30:10

It's all right.

Presenter30:12

What's the longest you've ever waited for a shot where you've been sitting there? You know, it's day twenty-two.

Doug Allan30:17

Yeah, I am.

Presenter30:17

And nothing's happened yet. I mean, when do you decide enough's enough?

Doug Allan30:19

Yeah.

Doug Allan30:22

My most frustrating shot was probably Snow Leopards. I was doing Snow Leopards for two separate programmes which combined forces at one point. So I was out in Ladakh for I think about eleven weeks in total and really only had a s Snow Leopard filmable in front of me for one hour in eleven weeks. And it was asleep for fifty minutes of an hour.

Doug Allan30:44

So I it kind of was trudged along a s a a snowfield, settled down, lay went to sleep, woke up and walked around the corner. So that was that was tough because it's a hard place to live. You know, it's quite high and it was cold at night and, you know, quite warm during the day and things like that. When you go for ambitious things, you have to expect failure.

Doug Allan31:04

You have to be prepared not I get anything at all?

Presenter31:06

I mentioned in the introduction something that was one of your greatest successes and a remarkable piece of footage, if anybody has seen it, many millions have, of course, and this is of the killer whales who are circling the seals on these little floating ice platforms. You'd heard speak of that, and many people in your line of work had, that these killer whales would work together as a pod. It's got a name.

Doug Allan31:12

Oh mis

Speaker 131:12

Yeah.

Speaker 131:17

Who are

Speaker 131:18

On the

Doug Allan31:19

Islam

Speaker 131:19

But

Doug Allan31:21

Okay.

Doug Allan31:27

Wave washing where they

Presenter31:28

wave washing, where they wash the seals into the water and that's dinner. And nobody really knows how how the whales communicate the point at which they're all going to surge together to create the wave. It was you and another cameraman who were responsible for that extraordinary footage.

Doug Allan31:31

To the water and that

Doug Allan31:38

Gate the way

Doug Allan31:42

Well, that was Doug Anderson and I got the job of shooting that. That was actually I first heard of that behaviour thirty-three years earlier in the Antarctic. Vague stories came from an Argentinian base. We got friendly with these Argentinians during the winter. We used to play darts with them over the radio, so there was quite a level of trust between us. And then in the summer they told us about this behaviour that they'd seen or they'd heard about on another Argentinian base. We kept an eye on it, but really it was a very rarely observed piece of behaviour. I don't know, no one's tried it since, so again I don't know how lucky we were, but that is the holy grail of filmmakers is to get a new piece of behaviour involving big charismatic animals, and it doesn't come any better.

Speaker 132:01

Yeah.

Presenter32:26

Let's have your final choice then. Uh, Doug, tell me about this, your eighth disc of the morning.

Doug Allan32:32

Uh

Presenter32:32

Uh

Doug Allan32:32

Find the River R. E. M. are a wonderful band, again it's all about lyrics and this one really is it's about change and how it ripples through your life and how you have to move on from some things. Just like the idea of of your life being a river, you know, down which you are flowing and eventually into the sea and eventually hopefully on to something new and different.

Speaker 432:58

Hey now, little Speedy Head!

Speaker 433:01

Read on the speed meter says You have to go to tasks in the city.

Speaker 433:11

When people drown and people serve Don't be shy, you just deserve Sony, just like years to go.

Presenter33:24

That was R. E. M. and Find the River.

Presenter33:27

Doug, it's really tough work that you do. How much longer can you go on doing the tough work? You look in splendid health, I have to.

Doug Allan33:32

Thank you very much. There isn't much that I can't do now that I couldn't do twenty years ago. I I probably would would draw the line at some of the high altitude stuff perhaps, because it's you know, areas particularly tough and unpleasant. But experience makes up for a lot, and it's all about pacing yourself. So I would hope to be doing

Doug Allan33:50

Certainly many of the things that I'm doing now for the next four or five years

Presenter33:54

It's nearly time to cast you away, then. What sort of desert islands do you want? Presumably not very humid.

Presenter34:01

It'd be nice to have a good view of the

Doug Allan34:03

The sunset. That's all I really want.

Presenter34:05

We can grant you that. And also, I can grant you the reading material, of course. You get to take the Bible and the complete works of Shakespeare and one other book. What will that be?

Doug Allan34:14

I've read lots of really good books. I'm I'm quite an avid book reader, but I think I would need volume, so to speak. And also I've love finding out about things. So I think I'd want at least one volume of Encyclopedia Britannica.

Presenter34:29

Okay, I'll give you just the one then. And a luxury. You're allowed that. I don't know if you'll need it actually, to make life a little more bearable.

Doug Allan34:35

This is a double-sided luxury. I'll take a blow-up sex doll so I can lie on top of it and paddle my way to safety.

Doug Allan34:44

Is that allowed? That's the double thing.

Presenter34:46

No, it is actually. I mean, but strictly within the rules, it is allowed, but.

Doug Allan34:49

Okay, no, I think really, I think um

Doug Allan34:53

I think I'd probably take a guitar, the idea of singing along with some of those songs that I've chosen would be fascinating.

Presenter35:01

And if you had to save just one disk from the waves, which one would it be?

Doug Allan35:05

Ah

Doug Allan35:07

I think I want Thunder Road, because Thunder Road is my personal one. The other ones remind me of people, so I'll be.

Doug Allan35:15

Totally selfish and say I want the one that reminds me of me.

Presenter35:18

You're allowed, you get to take the Bruce Springsteen.

Doug Allan35:20

Okay.

Presenter35:20

Doug Allens, thank you very much for letting us hear your Desert Island discs.

Doug Allan35:24

My pleasure.

Presenter36:05

You've been listening to a download from the BBC. You'll find more information on the Radio 4 website: bbc.co.uk slash Radio4.