My Wild Life

by Simon Cowell

  Over the years I became acquainted with the patterns in nature that affect our work. Certain animals are born at certain times of the year so we get certain species in certain weeks; one week it is starlings, the next week it is foxes. I also noticed that time after time situations would be the same: for some inexplicable reason we would get a glut of jackdaws in chimneys one week followed by several deer in railings the next.

  The spring is orphan season, where predominantly the patients are young animals which have either lost their parents in accidents or have been abandoned. Inevitably orphan season involves a lot of badger cubs whose parents have been killed in accidents. On several occasions I have been called out to the heart-breaking scene of a cub or cubs attempting to suckle from the carcass of their dead mother by the side of the road or by rail tracks. The youngsters are fairly easy to catch: they have a growl and a spit but as soon as they are scruffed they go limp. We take in the orphans and bottle-feed them.

  We do our best for every animal and that sometimes means going to extraordinary lengths. One day, when a tiny badger cub was brought in to the centre with a dome-shaped forehead, I endeavoured to do all I could to discover what was wrong with it and get it treated. The badger was one of the first cases I’d seen of hydrocephalus, or fluid on the brain. Often sufferers are blind or have trouble walking, and inevitably they will be in pain caused by the build-up of pressure in their skulls. The condition can be congenital or as a result of illness or injury. I wanted to make sure my diagnosis was correct and I contacted Clare Rusbridge, who was a young vet and is now a leading animal neurosurgeon. She agreed to help. She called one of her contacts, a man named Henry Marsh, one of the country’s most experienced brain specialists. He was fascinated by our case and agreed to see the patient. Most importantly we needed to get scans of the badger and so, with the bare-faced cheek I realized was the only way to get things done when you run a charity, I called up a posh private hospital in Surrey, which I knew had a CT scanner, and asked if I could use it. I did my homework first and found out who the right person to talk to was and then went on a charm offensive.

  I managed to get the hospital to agree to let us use its scanner after hours, when there were no human patients. Then I took the badger and its scans to Henry, who looked at it and confirmed hydrocephalus. Clare and Henry then formulated a treatment plan, which involved surgery. Clare did the operation and Henry assisted because, even though he was one of the world’s experts on the human brain, he wasn’t a vet so could not operate on animals.

  It was a Herculean effort for a little badger cub and in my mind was worth it because all life is equal. Sadly, the badger died. Interventions like that on domestic animals usually have good outcomes because owners can drain the shunt that is put in during surgery to take the excess fluid away, give the patient medication and keep the wound free of infection.

  Different animal species react differently to treatment and intervention. Badgers are usually hardy but our brain patient was too poorly to survive. Roe deer have the lowest success rate of all. They go into a state of decline quickly. I learned early in my rescuing career that for roe deer the best option is to try and do all treatment on-site and let the animal go straight away.

  Birds, too, display their own quirks depending on their subspecies. I used to say that if you worked on a kestrel it would be fine but you only had to say the word ‘vet’ to a sparrowhawk and it would die. Some animals are just stress-prone; woodpeckers and kingfishers are practically neurotic and have to be kept in a dark place away from people from day one. Other animals just seem to accept assistance and deal with it. I have no idea why.

  The first couple of years after my untimely departure from the City were an incredible learning curve and a delight, despite the complicated personal situation I had created for myself. I was devoted to the natural world and all its wonders and would have happily rescued all the time. My financial pay-out, however, began to run low and I needed to find other streams of income. Through acquaintances I met a man called Adam who ran a video production company based in the neighbouring town of Cobham. He produced videos of school plays, polo matches, weddings and anything else that was required. I had always had an interest in photography and he was looking for someone to help him out so I worked with him to learn the trade and did some sound recording and editing. He employed a cameraman named Steve Rouse who was a larger-than-life character and we got on well. Steve was a maverick who enjoyed a drink, we shared the same sense of humour, and he was interested in the work we were doing at Wildlife Aid.

  Steve knew his stuff when it came to operating a camera and some of his exploits were the stuff of legend. On one occasion he was involved in filming a conference. It was something to do with a gas or water company and involved a lot of men in suits talking about company strategy in long, dull speeches. Steve was operating a camera at the back of the room so all he had to do was make sure the shot was in focus and the microphone was pointing in the right direction. It wasn’t a particularly demanding job and did not require any fancy camerawork or difficult shots. In his recollection of events, he fell asleep for a few seconds. The tape told a different story. His snoring from behind the camera could be heard getting progressively louder until the whole conference stopped and all the delegates turned around in the direction of the camera Steve was sitting behind. Someone could be heard saying, ‘Can someone please wake the cameraman up?’ The footage then showed someone walking towards to the camera before it wobbled when Steve was woken.

  Before long I invested in my own video equipment and struck out on my own, an unplanned decision which again led me down an unexpected path.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  The Good Lord

  Giveth . . .

  WITH SO MANY well-known people in the vicinity it was inevitable that sometimes we would get celebrities coming in with animals and when they did I did my best to enquire as to whether they would like to make a donation or become a patron. If I wasn’t in when they came to the centre, I would call them later.

  ‘Hello, Penelope Keith, just to let you know, the animal you brought in to us is doing well. Have you ever thought about making a donation? I loved you in The Good Life, by the way.’

  Charities, I soon learned, needed all the help they could get.

  In the mid-nineties I happened to meet Chris Tarrant. It was just before he became the host of Who Wants to be a Millionaire?, the hugely successful quiz show. He and his then wife Ingrid were both animal lovers, and Ingrid was particularly interested in animal welfare. They lived nearby and we talked about my work and how the charity had started and they were both fascinated. Chris, who had led a bit of a wild life himself, enjoyed some of the more outlandish stories I recounted and he had a great sense of humour. I turned on the charm and persuaded him to become a patron. Over the years they both gave their time and support unselfishly and Ingrid still helps out today.

  I like Chris a lot. He is a nice chap with a wicked sense of humour and he offered to do what he could to help us out. He was a valuable addition to our growing band of celebrity patrons, the first of which was Sir Harry Secombe, whom I persuaded to come on board when we first formed the charity. I had been at school with Harry’s son and knew him vaguely, although we hadn’t spoken for some time. Still, that provided enough of an introduction and Harry was happy to lend his name to our efforts, as was Chris, who agreed to appear in a Wildlife Aid video appeal. Increasingly, I was getting interested in the opportunities video footage provided us and I devised a plan to make an advertisement-cum-appeal. We could send it out to people and use it in our promotional material. We could put it online, too, but in those days internet speeds over dial-up meant that people would have to wait an age for it to download.

  I wanted the film to highlight the most common type of incident we got called out to deal with: we attended scenes of road accidents involving wildlife almost daily. Each year we were taking in scores of badger cubs, orphaned when their mothers had been s
truck by cars.

  Chris came into the centre and narrated the appeal with a badger on his lap. We edited in scenes of a mock-up accident and finished the video with some scenes of injured deer and rescued fox cubs as Chris explained that, with the increasing number of roads and road users, wildlife was under threat and Wildlife Aid needed help. Now. Please.

  For an early attempt at my own production I was quite pleased with the results. It was powerful. I could just as easily have filmed an ad full of baby animals in various states of cuteness, which arguably would have received a better reaction. As unpleasant as the truth is, however, wild animals die every day as a result of our actions. We stomp over the planet with no regard for it or the creatures on it, and there is no point trying to deny that our actions have unpalatable consequences.

  The more I used the camera equipment, the more I saw the potential. I picked up techniques quickly as I’d always been a fast learner. I started touting for production myself and began a business in video production, filming plays for local primary schools so parents could keep the videos for prosperity. It was easy work because the set-up involved only one camera. As long as the angle, view and sound were right, there was little that could go wrong.

  I started taking a camera with me on rescues, too, and sometimes Steve would come along and film with me.

  Several volunteers had asked me to teach them rescuing techniques and it was not the sort of job that you could teach from a textbook or easily explain. They wanted to know the ingredients for a successful rescue. Mostly they wanted to come out with me in order to learn, but this was logistically impossible, especially if it was a 2 a.m. rescue. I always tried to keep my response time to about four minutes – a target I keep to this day – from the time the call comes in to the time I leave. I wrote down the details, assessed what kit was needed, collected the kit together and went. I couldn’t hang around waiting for volunteers to arrive so I could give them on-the-job training. Filming the rescues meant that I would have a stock of footage to show potential rescuers at a later date when I could sit with them and explain why I did what I did in a given situation. The footage not only allowed people to see techniques for catching different species, it also allowed volunteers and budding rescuers an insight into animal behaviour in the field.

  The footage was popular because, in the majority of scenarios I filmed, there was drama, emotion, tragedy and, often, comedy. There were rescues on water where I’d be flapping around in a pond in the small plastic boat we had, or rooftop rescues where I’d be terrified. Some were full of dark humour.

  On one occasion I was called to rescue a squirrel stranded on a roof. It was on a house by a main road and I drove there with my camera in tow.

  ‘It’s been lying on the roof for three hours,’ the owner had explained when she called through. ‘I don’t think it is dead but I can’t be one hundred per cent certain.’

  Sure enough, when I arrived with a volunteer, the squirrel was lying face down on an apex roof. It was motionless and I assumed the homeowner’s suspicions were correct and the poor thing was indeed dead. I couldn’t be sure, though, and as I never walked away from a rescue knowingly without a conclusion, I knew I would have to go up and investigate properly.

  ‘I tell you what I’ll do,’ I explained. ‘I’ll go back to the centre, get the ladders, come back, climb up and have a closer look, just to make sure. If it moves in the meantime call me.’

  The round trip to collect the ladders took another hour, so by the time we returned the squirrel had been motionless on the roof for well over four hours. It also started to rain and the poor thing was soaked. It had surely carked it, otherwise it would have got itself out of the rain.

  ‘I’m afraid this is going to be a recovery operation,’ I told my colleague confidently as I climbed the ladder.

  The squirrel was lying near the lip of the roof, just above the gutter and remained unresponsive to the sound of the ladder clanging against the eaves as I climbed. I concentrated on my grip and footing as I climbed up the back of the house, by which time a small crowd had gathered in the road to watch the daring man pluck a dead squirrel from a roofing tile. Eventually I cleared the guttering and came face to face with the animal. I was so close to it and our faces were level. Its eyes were closed and its little legs and arms were spread-eagled. It was completely still and couldn’t have looked more dead. I lifted my hand carefully and slowly reached over to confirm its demise and as I did its eyes opened with a start. We both jumped, and I let out a curse. In one burst of energy, it shot off across the roof, leapt into a tree, ran down the trunk, across the garden, over the fence and into the road, straight into the path of a bus which braked hard to avoid him. He was last seen heading off into a thicket somewhere near Epsom.

  Videos of similar exploits built up into a video library that people loved watching and one day an acquaintance, Brian Cardy, made a suggestion. A friend of his knew a man called Michael Atwell who was working on the new terrestrial television station, Channel Five, which was due to be launched the following year, 1997. Michael commissioned arts- and feature-based series for the channel and was high up in the company structure. Just getting a meeting with him was a coup.

  Brian’s friend put in a call, explained what Wildlife Aid was doing and told Michael about our videos. Michael agreed to meet. I edited the best of the footage into two tapes; each was roughly an episode long and had some narration over the top – they were rough edits (known as rushes in the production industry).

  Michael invited me to his office in central London and, as we sat down over a cup of tea, I explained about Wildlife Aid and our work. We then sat in his office with the blinds pulled and watched the videos I’d brought. Halfway through I looked over – it was at the point of a particularly emotional rescue – and I saw Michael’s eyes glistening with tears.

  He’s crying, I thought to myself, which can only be a good thing.

  When the videos were finished Michael took a deep breath.

  ‘I love it,’ he gushed. ‘Can we have a series?’

  ‘No problem,’ I answered, without thinking.

  To add some context, TV production companies work tirelessly developing programme ideas and the whole process can sometimes take years. They shoot and reshoot, they employ staff and high-end production techniques, they edit carefully and they build relationships with commissioners (the people at television channels who decide whether to buy a programme or series). Negotiations can go on and on. To get a series commissioned by a terrestrial channel is a big deal. In contrast, I had a short meeting and showed some roughly edited tapes and was offered a deal there and then. Once again, fate, luck or circumstance – call it what you will – had intervened. I hadn’t even been out of the City for two years and I was wet behind the ears when it came to television production, but I had achieved something much more experienced television producers rarely get to do. I had been awarded my own series.

  After the congratulations and the hand shaking were over, Michael asked me a question.

  ‘How are you going to do it?’

  It wasn’t a question I’d given much thought to. He wanted to know how we intended to produce the episodes. We were not a TV production company. We were a wildlife charity. We had the cameras but no high-end editing equipment and we didn’t have the ability to turn the raw footage into a finished television programme with tight editing, soundtrack and titles – the part of the process called post-production. Normally, an independent production company would film the subject and make the show. That would have been completely impractical for me. Ultimately, I was a wildlife rescuer not a television presenter and I didn’t harbour any ambitions to become one. I certainly was not going to let a television crew get in the way of my work and I was aware that if I used an independent company they would most likely have a different set of priorities to mine. It was fine when Steve filmed with me because he understood that during rescues the welfare of the animal was the most important focus and
that always had to remain the number-one priority. When he filmed he stayed out the way and allowed me to get on with my work. If I could talk to the camera or give the camera a better shot without distressing the animal or jeopardizing the rescue, I would, but he never asked. A production crew with a sensationalist agenda would.

  I wasn’t going to miss the opportunity, however, so I lied. ‘I have my own production company,’ I explained. Michael nodded. I’m not sure if he smelled the bullshit or not.

  We went through the details. The working title was Wildlife SOS, a name that stuck for sixteen years. Briefly, we worked out a time frame. It was spring 1996 and the channel went live early the following year so the series would need to be ready by then. We were given a budget. Channel Five was not awash with money. It had only allocated £110 million a year for programming, significantly less than the ITV network’s £600 million and Channel 4’s £270 million at the time. Wildlife SOS was the cheapest show the channel commissioned. Our first series budget worked out at around £5,000 a programme. With that I had to pay staff, pay for post-production, buy equipment and cover costs. It didn’t leave much, but it left enough for me to live on and to keep the charity going.

  When I got back to Randalls Farm that afternoon I walked jubilantly into the office and shouted: ‘I need a production company now.’

  Then I called Steve.

  ‘Get your arse over here. We have a TV series to make.’

  Over the following days I set up my own production company, Wild Productions. I went out and bought the kit we needed and I made a deal with a company nearby to post-produce the series. Steve came and worked for me and we started filming.

  Steve and I got on well, and he understood my ethos and the way I worked. We had a laugh when we could but the situations could turn on a pin and he knew when it was time to be serious. To begin with Steve was stationed at the centre five days a week. He lived nearby and when there was a particularly dramatic night rescue I called him and he could be at my doorstep in minutes.