FCE Interview 16

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Today’s guest needs no introduction. He is a man who has given us hours of interest and entertainment over the years, with his weekly series of wildlife programmes. He is, of course, Martin Middleton. Martin, you’ve been to the four corners of the Earth in search of material. Where did this love of adventures come from?

I don’t really know… I didn’t travel much as a child, but I remember reading about the East and being fascinated by it. Then, when I was about twelve, I met someone who’d been to Singapore – and to me that seemed incredible… and, of course, when I started in television, back in the early nineteen sixties, you didn’t travel to make a wildlife programme… you went along and filmed at the local zoo. So, when I said I’d like to go and film in Africa, the Head of Programmes just laughed at me.

And did you go to Africa?

On that occasion, no! But I eventually got them to allow me to go to Borneo, in nineteen sixty-two. There was just me and a cameraman. We went off for four months, filming wherever we found something interesting. We bought a canoe, sailed up-river for ten days and ended up in a traditional longhouse. Nowadays, of course, it’s all quite different.

Different? In what way?

We do months of preparation before we set off, so when we start filming, we know exactly what scenes we want to get. I mean, you don’t get up in the morning and say to your team, ‘What shall we do this morning?’ You have to know exactly what each scene is going to show… to work to a strict plan.

Some of your programmes have taken place in some pretty remote areas. It’s hard to imagine other programme-makers wanting to risk the dangers or discomfort that you’ve experienced.

Well, if you want original material, you’ve got to go off the beaten track… but you can find yourself doing some pretty strange things… um… like, for example, on one occasion, jumping out of a helicopter onto an iceberg. There I was… freezing cold… then it started to snow… and the helicopter had gone back to the ship and couldn’t take off again. So I was stuck there, on this iceberg, thinking, ‘This is crazy… I didn’t even want to come here!’

What I wonder is… where does somebody like yourself, who travels to all these exotic places as part of their work, go on holiday?

I’m not very good at lying on a beach, that’s for sure. I wouldn’t go to a place just to sit around. It’s nice to have an objective when you’re travelling… to have something you want to film… um… I’ve just come back from the Dominican Republic, and we were put up for the first night in a big hotel…the place was absolutely full of people, just lying there, sunbathing. They seemed quite happy to spend the whole day stretched out around the pool… they never seemed to want to go and explore the amazing things there were to see outside the hotel. For me, that would be a very boring way to spend a holiday.

Your programmes, though, must have inspired a lot of people to take their holidays in remote and little-known places.

You are probably right, but… well… I have mixed feelings about all this. I go back to the places where, years ago, I was the only European, and now there are cruise ships coming three times a day. So you worry that in ten years or so every remote place on the planet will be swallowed up, because everyone will be visiting it. But, on the other hand, I am in favour of tourism that is done in a way that protects the environment. You can see a good example of this in the Galapagos Islands, where the tourism is carefully managed. That’s very successful, and could be a model for the future…

Today’s guest needs no introduction. He is a man who has given us hours of interest and entertainment over the years, with his weekly series of wildlife programmes. He is, of course, Martin Middleton. Martin, you’ve been to the four corners of the Earth in search of material. Where did this love of adventures come from?

I don’t really know… I didn’t travel much as a child, but I remember reading about the East and being fascinated by it. Then, when I was about twelve, I met someone who’d been to Singapore – and to me that seemed incredible… and, of course, when I started in television, back in the early nineteen sixties, you didn’t travel to make a wildlife programme… you went along and filmed at the local zoo. So, when I said I’d like to go and film in Africa, the Head of Programmes just laughed at me.

And did you go to Africa?

On that occasion, no! But I eventually got them to allow me to go to Borneo, in nineteen sixty-two. There was just me and a cameraman. We went off for four months, filming wherever we found something interesting. We bought a canoe, sailed up-river for ten days and ended up in a traditional longhouse. Nowadays, of course, it’s all quite different.

Different? In what way?

We do months of preparation before we set off, so when we start filming, we know exactly what scenes we want to get. I mean, you don’t get up in the morning and say to your team, ‘What shall we do this morning?’ You have to know exactly what each scene is going to show… to work to a strict plan.

Some of your programmes have taken place in some pretty remote areas. It’s hard to imagine other programme-makers wanting to risk the dangers or discomfort that you’ve experienced.

Well, if you want original material, you’ve got to go off the beaten track… but you can find yourself doing some pretty strange things… um… like, for example, on one occasion, jumping out of a helicopter onto an iceberg. There I was… freezing cold… then it started to snow… and the helicopter had gone back to the ship and couldn’t take off again. So I was stuck there, on this iceberg, thinking, ‘This is crazy… I didn’t even want to come here!’

What I wonder is… where does somebody like yourself, who travels to all these exotic places as part of their work, go on holiday?

I’m not very good at lying on a beach, that’s for sure. I wouldn’t go to a place just to sit around. It’s nice to have an objective when you’re travelling… to have something you want to film… um… I’ve just come back from the Dominican Republic, and we were put up for the first night in a big hotel…the place was absolutely full of people, just lying there, sunbathing. They seemed quite happy to spend the whole day stretched out around the pool… they never seemed to want to go and explore the amazing things there were to see outside the hotel. For me, that would be a very boring way to spend a holiday.

Your programmes, though, must have inspired a lot of people to take their holidays in remote and little-known places.

You are probably right, but… well… I have mixed feelings about all this. I go back to the places where, years ago, I was the only European, and now there are cruise ships coming three times a day. So you worry that in ten years or so every remote place on the planet will be swallowed up, because everyone will be visiting it. But, on the other hand, I am in favour of tourism that is done in a way that protects the environment. You can see a good example of this in the Galapagos Islands, where the tourism is carefully managed. That’s very successful, and could be a model for the future…

Today’s guest needs no introduction. He is a man who has given us hours of interest and entertainment over the years, with his weekly series of wildlife programmes. He is, of course, Martin Middleton. Martin, you’ve been to the four corners of the Earth in search of material. Where did this love of adventures come from?

I don’t really know… I didn’t travel much as a child, but I remember reading about the East and being fascinated by it. Then, when I was about twelve, I met someone who’d been to Singapore – and to me that seemed incredible… and, of course, when I started in television, back in the early nineteen sixties, you didn’t travel to make a wildlife programme… you went along and filmed at the local zoo. So, when I said I’d like to go and film in Africa, the Head of Programmes just laughed at me.

And did you go to Africa?

On that occasion, no! But I eventually got them to allow me to go to Borneo, in nineteen sixty-two. There was just me and a cameraman. We went off for four months, filming wherever we found something interesting. We bought a canoe, sailed up-river for ten days and ended up in a traditional longhouse. Nowadays, of course, it’s all quite different.

Different? In what way?

We do months of preparation before we set off, so when we start filming, we know exactly what scenes we want to get. I mean, you don’t get up in the morning and say to your team, ‘What shall we do this morning?’ You have to know exactly what each scene is going to show… to work to a strict plan.

Some of your programmes have taken place in some pretty remote areas. It’s hard to imagine other programme-makers wanting to risk the dangers or discomfort that you’ve experienced.

Well, if you want original material, you’ve got to go off the beaten track… but you can find yourself doing some pretty strange things… um… like, for example, on one occasion, jumping out of a helicopter onto an iceberg. There I was… freezing cold… then it started to snow… and the helicopter had gone back to the ship and couldn’t take off again. So I was stuck there, on this iceberg, thinking, ‘This is crazy… I didn’t even want to come here!’

What I wonder is… where does somebody like yourself, who travels to all these exotic places as part of their work, go on holiday?

I’m not very good at lying on a beach, that’s for sure. I wouldn’t go to a place just to sit around. It’s nice to have an objective when you’re travelling… to have something you want to film… um… I’ve just come back from the Dominican Republic, and we were put up for the first night in a big hotel…the place was absolutely full of people, just lying there, sunbathing. They seemed quite happy to spend the whole day stretched out around the pool… they never seemed to want to go and explore the amazing things there were to see outside the hotel. For me, that would be a very boring way to spend a holiday.

Your programmes, though, must have inspired a lot of people to take their holidays in remote and little-known places.

You are probably right, but… well… I have mixed feelings about all this. I go back to the places where, years ago, I was the only European, and now there are cruise ships coming three times a day. So you worry that in ten years or so every remote place on the planet will be swallowed up, because everyone will be visiting it. But, on the other hand, I am in favour of tourism that is done in a way that protects the environment. You can see a good example of this in the Galapagos Islands, where the tourism is carefully managed. That’s very successful, and could be a model for the future…

Today’s guest needs no introduction. He is a man who has given us hours of interest and entertainment over the years, with his weekly series of wildlife programmes. He is, of course, Martin Middleton. Martin, you’ve been to the four corners of the Earth in search of material. Where did this love of adventures come from?

I don’t really know… I didn’t travel much as a child, but I remember reading about the East and being fascinated by it. Then, when I was about twelve, I met someone who’d been to Singapore – and to me that seemed incredible… and, of course, when I started in television, back in the early nineteen sixties, you didn’t travel to make a wildlife programme… you went along and filmed at the local zoo. So, when I said I’d like to go and film in Africa, the Head of Programmes just laughed at me.

And did you go to Africa?

On that occasion, no! But I eventually got them to allow me to go to Borneo, in nineteen sixty-two. There was just me and a cameraman. We went off for four months, filming wherever we found something interesting. We bought a canoe, sailed up-river for ten days and ended up in a traditional longhouse. Nowadays, of course, it’s all quite different.

Different? In what way?

We do months of preparation before we set off, so when we start filming, we know exactly what scenes we want to get. I mean, you don’t get up in the morning and say to your team, ‘What shall we do this morning?’ You have to know exactly what each scene is going to show… to work to a strict plan.

Some of your programmes have taken place in some pretty remote areas. It’s hard to imagine other programme-makers wanting to risk the dangers or discomfort that you’ve experienced.

Well, if you want original material, you’ve got to go off the beaten track… but you can find yourself doing some pretty strange things… um… like, for example, on one occasion, jumping out of a helicopter onto an iceberg. There I was… freezing cold… then it started to snow… and the helicopter had gone back to the ship and couldn’t take off again. So I was stuck there, on this iceberg, thinking, ‘This is crazy… I didn’t even want to come here!’

What I wonder is… where does somebody like yourself, who travels to all these exotic places as part of their work, go on holiday?

I’m not very good at lying on a beach, that’s for sure. I wouldn’t go to a place just to sit around. It’s nice to have an objective when you’re travelling… to have something you want to film… um… I’ve just come back from the Dominican Republic, and we were put up for the first night in a big hotel…the place was absolutely full of people, just lying there, sunbathing. They seemed quite happy to spend the whole day stretched out around the pool… they never seemed to want to go and explore the amazing things there were to see outside the hotel. For me, that would be a very boring way to spend a holiday.

Your programmes, though, must have inspired a lot of people to take their holidays in remote and little-known places.

You are probably right, but… well… I have mixed feelings about all this. I go back to the places where, years ago, I was the only European, and now there are cruise ships coming three times a day. So you worry that in ten years or so every remote place on the planet will be swallowed up, because everyone will be visiting it. But, on the other hand, I am in favour of tourism that is done in a way that protects the environment. You can see a good example of this in the Galapagos Islands, where the tourism is carefully managed. That’s very successful, and could be a model for the future…