Ben Fogle: ‘There is an assumption that if you are privileged you are somehow immune to suffering’
Ben Fogle became a household name in 2000 as one of the participants in reality television show Castaway 2000, where a group were marooned for a year on remote Scottish island of Taransay. He has since rowed the Atlantic, climbed Everest and completed a race to the South Pole. He is the presenter on Channel 5’s New Lives in the Wild and has appeared on BBC’s Springwatch and Countryfile. He is married to Marina Hunt, and they live in Buckinghamshire with their two children Ludovic and Iona.
Best childhood memory?
My childhood memories revolve around being out in Canada, where I spent all of my summers with my late grandparents. My happiest memories were being out in the Canadian wilderness. It wasn’t deep wilderness, but it was a rural lake with a cottage my late grandfather Morris had built by hand. It wasn’t entirely off-grid, we had electricity, but everything was rudimentary. It was very basic. I loved the canoe my grandfather had made himself. It was a very hands-on experience. I absolutely loved it. I remember being so sad when it was the end of the summer, when I had to come back to London.
What was the best day of your life?
In January 2006, the day that James Cracknell and I arrived in Antigua after rowing across the Atlantic Ocean. We pulled in at two in the morning, at the end of a very tough, emotional few months at sea, which I thought would never end. I didn’t think we’d cross the finish line. I didn’t think we’d survive. So it was the culmination of many emotions. I thought my family thought we were dead. So to arrive in the harbour and for all our family to be there – we didn’t know they’d all be there, as we had no communication. It was a mix of satisfaction and relief – I don’t think I’ve ever had all those emotions in one single experience. And I don’t think I’ll ever have the same feelings again. I hugged my family first, and my then girlfriend Marina. I proposed to her then, she was there with my parents and my sisters and my best friends. We weren’t in great shape. We were physically and mentally exhausted. And James was very sick. I was in better condition than he was. But we couldn’t walk or sit down properly for a couple of days. We’d lost a huge amount of weight. But the overriding memory was just one of complete relief. Never again was the overriding sentiment: I’ve been there, I’ve done that. I don’t need to do it again. But now of course that’s changed, and I’d love to do it again. But it’s taken 20 years.
Best experience with a pet?
Meeting my wife was the most life-changing of moments. It’s how my parents met, through their dogs. It’s a Fogle family tradition, that’s how we meet our partners. I met Marina walking in Hyde Park. She was walking her brown Labrador Magi, sadly now passed, and I had my late black Labrador Inca. She was running with her dog in the more hilly centre of the park near the police station. I was having a leisurely walk, with a cup of coffee, and spotted her over the course of a few weeks, but was far too shy to go up and chat. Eventually I did. We married less than a year later. The dogs didn’t come to our wedding, we got married in Portugal, but we had two little marzipan figurines made of the dogs that sat atop our wedding cake.
Best decision?
To go on the reality show Castaway. In 1999 I was working for Tatler magazine, and I saw the advert and wanted some adventure, so I applied for that show. No one could understand why I’d be giving up a good job and central London, and giving up all my friends, for a year. It changed my life, it is where I became an environmentalist. I believe we should be very careful about not wasting anything. A lot of that was born through my experience on Taransay – nothing went to waste, we only had a finite amount of food.
Best part of performing live?
I’ve done theatre tours for a number of years now. I’m up to nearly 200 venues. So I’ve performed to around 200,000 people. And I find it terrifying, but also completely exciting. Most of my work life is spent in remote places like I am now, on Great Blasket Island in Ireland with a very small team. But to then be on a stage in front of thousands of people at impressive theatres is terrifying, but I find it incredibly exciting as well. I love the diversity in my life that I do go from one extreme to the other. The highs are getting that immediate reaction, especially when people really enjoy the show, and I get a standing ovation or rousing applause at the end. It’s obviously very satisfying. The nerves beforehand are difficult, and the feeling that I’m going to do something wrong or I’m going to freeze or forget the stories I’m telling, or just look stupid. I’ve often struggled with self doubt. It’s hard to completely get rid of it. I’ve been able to reduce the volume of that inner voice of doubt, but it’s still there. But you just work with your shortcomings. Rather than trying to avoid them, I confront the things I’m fearful of.
Best advice
I would like to be liked by everyone. But it was the late Terry Wogan who said that the more some people like you, the more other people will absolutely despise you. It was a very astute piece of advice because it’s true. And it’s impossible to please all the people all of the time.
Worst time of childhood?
I suffered homesickness for about a year when I went to board at Bryanston (a public school in Dorset). It was a very long time, but it was still the best decision to endure that homesickness because it toughened me for a life of being away. I’ve spent more time away than most people, and I still have little feelings of homesickness. But that was a very tough period. I came from a very happy home with lots of animals, lots of dogs, sisters, it was a very busy home, and a very loving, happy home. I missed everything. I missed living in dad’s veterinary clinic, I missed the dogs. I missed my annoying sisters. The homesickness feels like heartbreak. The only feelings I can compare it to is when you’re left broken-hearted by a loved one, when a girlfriend has dumped you. You’re left emotionally a bit broken.
Worst part of schooldays?
Exams were a very sad time. All the big exams I had to do, my common entrance exams aged 13, I failed all of those. My GCSEs, I failed most of those. My AS levels, I failed most of those, and my A-levels, I failed most of those. Standout moments always revolve around exams, when I felt the saddest, the most hopeless and the greatest failure.
Worst time of your life?
Losing our son Willem at 33 weeks in 2014 was without doubt the worst. Marina and I decided to share our experience, so that it would help others come to terms with their own losses. But it’s not something I dwell on feeling sorry for myself. Although it’s important to remember I’m a father of three children, not two, and although there are only two present in my life, I remember there were three. The reason Marina and I still talk about it is because many people have gone through the same, many people have gone through far worse. To be honest with what you have experienced, especially if you have the seemingly charmed, privileged life we do, is important. We all experience hardships in different forms. I hope we don’t experience anything as awful again. Life is turbulent. And has its peaks and troughs. And that was certainly a very low point.
Worst health scare
Given the prolific travel and time spent in extreme environments, I’ve got away very lightly. I’ve never had malaria, despite spending huge amounts of my life in malarial zones, and never had cholera. But I have had some unfortunate experiences, and leishmaniasis was one of them. It’s a flesh-eating disease that I picked up in late 2008 in Peru. It was pretty nasty. I was left bed-bound for months, out of work for many months. It’s a neglected disease, killing tens of thousands every year, but there’s no money in the research because not enough people who have money contract it. For pharmaceutical companies there’s no money in finding a vaccine or treatment. The only treatment remains an old fashioned form of chemical therapy, which you take in exactly the same way as chemotherapy. It leaves you in a pretty poor health state because it poisons you. And I had to have it twice. And it did leave me with a slight PTSD when it comes to jungles. I’ve only just returned to the jungle for the very first time since I had leishmaniasis, I just got back from three weeks in the Congo. I felt very nervous about it, but glad I got back on the metaphorical jungle horse.
Worst thing about being marooned on a remote island for TV?
There were definitely moments of darkness. It was hard being away from family for a whole year. There were a lot of different people with very strong ideas on the island, which I now embrace, being around people with different opinions to mine. That’s why I love filming with people who are extremes. I like the challenge of that. I’m quite liberal and tolerant because of my time on Taransay. You have to understand that people have different values, and you have to respect those. Afterwards was hard, coming back to London, having lost my anonymity. It wasn’t something I had planned to do. I struggled with reality show fame being shallow. There’s no substance, no depth to it. The things I did afterwards were trying to validate that fame. I didn’t want reality show fame for the rest of my life, being famous for the sake of it. If people were going to know who I was, I wanted there to be some substance and depth. That’s why I took on challenges like climbing Everest and rowing across the Atlantic to at least validate what I’d achieved on Castaway.
Worst meal
When I had to eat baboon in Tanzania. I was making a show with the Hadzabe tribe, and they presented me with baboon, intact with a skull, and I had no idea what I should do, or whether it was appropriate or ethical. I didn’t want to, but I didn’t want to seem rude. I ended up having some and, as a vegetarian, it didn’t go down well.
The absolute worst
There is an assumption that if you are privileged, and I completely acknowledge I am very privileged, you are somehow immune to suffering or hardship or sorrow. And I hope that by speaking honestly about my own experiences, whether it is with dyslexia, with homesickness, with loss, that it humanises them for everyone. Ultimately we humans all have the same emotions, we all feel pain, loss, sorrow and anxiety. I feel that transcends class, or wealth or privilege – but some people will just disagree with you for the sake of it.
Ben Fogle is working with Ocado and The Beano to encourage families to reduce food waste, by turning leftovers into recipes. See the recipe book here.
