Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Wildlife broadcaster and filmmaker known for up-close encounters with a lioness, tigers, and a polar bear in a perspex box.
On the island
Eight records
It reminds me of my mum, and it reminds me of happy times in my mum's life that I was aware of.
This is about Chukda Pride. ... Being a Chukter is cool.
I thought he was the most charismatic man I'd ever seen and just so flamboyant.
This song and it really reminds me of that era ... getting to know and understand my siblings in a much, much deeper way.
High and DryFavourite
For me it was about being young. ... listening to Radiohead play that song on that day was nothing short of magic.
This kind of wraps up a really exciting period of our lives. ... it was a really exciting time.
It kind of makes me slightly cringe ... reminds me of making a decision and knowing that it's the right decision.
I don't think it needs any explanation. It's the not so much this song as the effect this song has on people and I love it.
In conversation
Presenter asks
1:42You've been called fearless many times. Are you?
No, I'm not without fear. I don't know. I think it's just sort of animals are quite easy to predict. Most animals are easy to predict. Human beings, on the other hand, are kind of the most unpredictable creature on earth. So I'm more on edge walking through the streets of London, like walking through Euston. I'm much more on edge than I would be out in the wilds of Africa. So I think it's just because I've been doing this job for, yeah, since I was 17, my norm is not that normal for a lot of people. And you do everything you can to avoid getting into trouble. Or if you're scared, generally you've done something wrong or not been observant enough. But yeah, I'm kind of fairly... I'm laid back. In wild places, I'm laid back. But in the kind of modern human world, I'm not that laid back at all. So it's the urban jungle that's a problem. Yeah, definitely. Got it.
Presenter asks
2:38Many people would find sitting in a cramped hide for days on end a nightmare, but you see it as an escape. Tell me about that.
Well, sitting in a hide, and you sometimes have to do that for a couple of hours, a couple of days, sometimes I've done it for 30 days in a row. And it is, it's small enough that you could touch all four walls from your seated position, and you leave behind a lot of human problems. I do when I go into that space, it's like you become invisible. You know, you're sitting in there waiting for the animal that you're interested to come along, or you're waiting for the behavior to unfold in front of you. So there's lots of little clues and signs that often sort of happen in the lead up to that. So you have to really tune into that frequency, and you're tuning into the frequency of nature. Yeah, it's kind of almost transcendental meditation. I don't really worry about much when I'm in a hide.
The keepsakes
The book
I was like when I was rescued, people just maybe sailing by and I'd just be a couple of coconuts on my feet, tap dancing on the dance floor that I've made by myself.
The luxury
If I didn't have an ability to kind of go underwater, you're missing like two-thirds of the most amazing things of the island.
Presenter asks
13:36When did you first realize that [your stepfather Alastair] wasn't everything he seemed to be?
With Alice in the beginning, I think because I had this sort of empty space and probably and was looking for a kind of sort of a father figure, you know, I think initially hoped that he could fill that void. But I think really quite quickly I sensed there's something off about him. He kind of was, I think, really good at masking his issues and sort of his violent tendencies. But as it just played out within, you know, really quite early on in the relationship, there was sort of domestic violence that escalated at home.
Presenter asks
21:09Nick [Gordon] made you an offer that changed your life. How did he pitch it to you?
Um he one afternoon randomly he said, How would you like to be my assistant? You know I've got this year and a half long project coming up in Sierra Leone. How would you like to come with me and be my assistant?
Presenter asks
25:05What about the emotional wrench of being away from home for the first time? How did you cope with that?
Yeah, I I think that because the story was good, and even in the local paper in Orban Times, there's a local lad is given the opportunity of a lifetime. So that story is good and you don't really want to spoil it for anyone by saying I was desperately homesick. Like more nights than not I was crying myself to sleep. It was really tough because 17 is young and having no form of communication other than writing letters. It was really just and I was cut off from everything and everyone that I knew and I spent my 18th birthday in Sierra Leone and Nick said just think in the future you'll be able to tell people. I spent my 18th birthday on an uninhabited island in the middle of the Gola rainforest and I was thinking I want to spend it in a local pub with my friends drinking cider and blackcurrant.
Presenter asks
42:23You went through a difficult time in 2011 with a severe bout of depression. What had triggered it, do you think?
I think I've always had depression in one sort of way, shape, or form, even as I thinking back to sort of me as a as a kid. And I remember kind of looking about at kids just being kids and skipping and being happy, and I was like, They're putting that on. That's not what childhood is about. And I think as I got older, I probably was very good at distracting myself and spending all the time through my kind of late teens and 20s. I kind of, yeah, I was busy enough to kind of not look in that direction. But then I think maybe just too much. It was brought on by burnout. I think I just had a period of time when all of the projects that I kind of, you know, that were... that I wanted to work on were coming thick and fast. And I was saying yes to kind of practically everything that I thought was going to take me one little step further in my career and not putting Wendy and the Kids before that. It all just came at once, sort of burnout and this sort of depression that really came on like a big w it was sort of growing at the start of the year but then within a couple of months it was sort of a I kind of couldn't get out of out of bed and I was like oh this this this is this is depression but I think it's just one of these things I don't think it's about necessarily about childhood experiences I think it's part of my my makeup
“it's like you become invisible. You know, you're sitting in there waiting for the animal that you're interested to come along, or you're waiting for the behavior to unfold in front of you. So there's lots of little clues and signs that often sort of happen in the lead up to that. So you have to really tune into that frequency, and you're tuning into the frequency of nature.”
“I realized that I was the honorary unpaid babysitter for these wolves.”
“why am I the one that's sort of twisted in knots here? I haven't done anything wrong.”
“I never find myself alone and think, I really need to be around people right now. But I often find myself surrounded by people thinking, I really need to be alone right now.”