James Chubb

Happy Sadness

It is possible to simultaneously be deliriously happy, and desperately sad. I know, because last week I experienced just such an emotional paradox.

I can even tell you the exact time that I fell into my elated-gloom. It was 9pm on Monday and I was tuned in to BBC 1. It was the first programme in the series, Life in Cold Blood, an occasion I have been waiting for, well, for pretty much 20 years now.

I was over the moon because my favourite group of animals, reptiles and amphibians, was getting the full BBC Natural History Unit treatment, and yet I was genuinely deeply saddened as this is to be the last series of its kind. Sir David Attenborough, the man who, without knowing it, has had more influence over my professional career than anyone else on earth is retiring from the “Life…” series. It’s my desire to walk in his shoes, to reveal secrets of the natural world, to share a genuine all-consuming passion, which has sculpted my life and now that broadcasting beacon is to be extinguished.

Sure, we’ll still have his legecy committed to DVD and VHS, but nothing will beat that sense of nueron-tingling, stomach-knotting excitement that always accompanies the start of his latest project. What a fitting treat that his swan song is a eulagy to the most misunderstood and universally disliked group of animals; if anyone can convert the snake haters out there, it’s my guy Dave!

As a devotee of Herpetology – the study of reptiles and amphibians – I am already totally in awe of this amazing gorup of animals. But I know from first hand experience that reptiles in particular are a bridge too far for some people. Sadly my wife is just one of these people.

When we first met she refused to be in the same room as my ranbow boa, or even look at my leopard geckos! I must admit that the choice was a little harder than I admit in her company, but eventually the menagerie went and the rest is matrimonial history.

But I still can’t quite appreciate her perspective. I mean, leopard geckos are everything that an easy-to-love reptile should be, aren’t they? They are indesputibly pretty, have a hypnotic gaze from dissarmingly jewel-like eyes, they are slow and steady, and you can see right through their heads! What’s not to love? But no, she would not be told.

However, when Sir David’s magic was woven around these little beauties last Monday night, accompanied by the stunning imagery no-one but the Natural History unit can achieve, even Jo was impressed. I’m not sure it’s a green light for having geckos, snakes and bearded dragons back in the bedroom once again, but then I’m not 15 years old any more.

It is amazing that the charm of one individual, combined with massive ammounts of knwoledge, integrity and genuine passion can come together to produce a television presenter the like of which will probably never grace our screens again. It is a shame. TV schedules are increasingly full of air-time to be filled, and so often what fills it is absolute froth.

Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy mindless entertainment as much as the next person, but to counterpoint the flim-flam there needs to be the mindful. If we are to suffer the humiliation to our species that is Dancing on Ice or I’m a “Celebrity” get me out of Here, then we need people like David Attenborough on our screens.

I have never been lucky enough to meet the man properly. I say properly, as I did once serve him vegetables at an awards dinner when I was 15, but I was so nervous I had to be moved as I couldn’t pour the gravy properly. I’ve always daydreamed since then, that one day I would be sitting on the same table as David at a Natural History Awards Ceremony, waiting to affect mock-surprise when I’m announced to collect a HUGE gong, sealing my place in that illustrious roll of Natural History honour… then I wake up.

But don’t get me wrong. I would not want to be in any other line of work than this, and I have Sir David to thank for guiding my hand. To be able to get up every morning and know you are going to do something, often something quite boring, but something that is directly connected to conservation, is a brilliant feeling. I often have to pinch myself to see if I am dreaming these days, and realise that I am in fact awake!

One such occasion was Friday morning, when I visited Holyford Woods, near Seaton. Holyford is one of my favourite Local Nature Reserves I am fortunate to have within my patch. Every so often I am required, required mind you, to spend time there, getting to know it better. It may sound perverse, but getting out of the office is often the hardest part of my job, and yet it is then that I do the core of what I am employed to. Its only by really knowing a place, that you can hope to be a successful liason between it and other people.

I was on the track of an ilusive bird, the lesser spotted woodpecker, a bird with which I have some history within the BBC. Eighteen months ago I took a radio crew from Radio Four’s Open Country into Holyford Woods, in pursuit of woodpeckers, the lesser spotted in particular. We saw nothing, apart from a distant glimpse of a green woodpecker when walking back to the car – never work with children or animals is the addage, I’ve ended up doing both!

This time I spent an age sat at the base of an ash tree, tapping a pebble on the bark in an attempt to interact with woodpeckers. Within 15 minutes I had two great spots going beserk in the trees around me, desperate to find the woodpecker making all the noise and drive it out of their territory, but all they could find was a strange peson dressed in green, sat beneath the tree.

They were brilliant, making a strange gurgling call in the back of their throats, which I had not heard before. A flock of *** made their way past my tree wile I sat, long-tailed *** forming the bulk of the squadron, with a vanguard of coal ***, a few wrens and a goldcrest bringing up the rear. No lesser peckers in there though.