Skip to main content

Silver Sound 7 October 2016 - Wildlife Encounters



Today’s guest was Bristol-based wildlife film producer Dan Freeman. Dan has produced over thirty wildlife documentaries and has written five books and numerous articles. His recent book, Mangroves and Man Eaters and Other Wildlife Encounters, is a fascinating account of some of his adventures – some funny, some sad, some frankly terrifying. From meeting the original James Bond to wading in with piranhas to getting to know the blackbirds in his own garden, Dan has some amazing stories to tell. His book also gives an insight into the work of wildlife film makers, and is a reminder that we depend on wild habitats as much as the animals who live in them.

If you’re interested in filming or photographing wildlife, why not go along to the Bristol Wildscreen Festival? The Festival runs from 10 to 14 October. For details of events and bookings visit the Wildscreen Festival website.

Also this month is Bristol Festival of Literature from 20 to 29 October. See the Bristol Festival of Literature website for details.


You can listen to the show here


Silver Sound is broadcast by BCfm between 10 am and mid day on Thursdays and Fridays. I’ll be back on the show on 4 November 2016 with another fabulous guest! 

Update: During the show I played the theme from the 1966 film, Born Free which tells the story of how Joy Adamson and her husband reared a lion cub and then released it back into the wild. The Times published an interesting article about Joy Adamson on 15 October 2016 - "Joy Adamson's dark side revealed half a century on from Born Free." The article is on The Times website (you have to sign up to read it) http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/joy-adamsons-dark-side-revealed-half-a-century-on-from-born-free-x25qpxt7m

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Dickens and Chickens

On 17 April 1860, in fields near Farnborough, Charles Dickens joined an audience amongst whom were the Prince of Wales and the Prime Minister, Lord Palmerston, as well as a number of MPs and clergymen, to watch the American John Carmel Heenan and England’s Tom Sayers (the Brighton Titch) beat one another blind and bloody in a bare-knuckle fight that lasted nearly two and a half hours. The fight ended in a draw when Aldershot police stormed the ring, forcing the fighters and their illustrious spectators to flee the scene. It was the brutality of this match that signalled an end to the bare-knuckle era and prompted the development of the Marquess of Queensberry’s rules. Dickens’s interest in pugilism was of long standing. In 1848 Dombey and Son , which had been published in serial form over the preceding two years, came out in book form. One of many of his novels that draws on the world of the prize fighter, it introduces the unforgettable Mr Toots, a would-be man about town, an...

The Bristol Boys: The Bare Knuckle Champions and The Hatchet Inn

The Hatchet Inn on Frogmore Street in Bristol is all that remains of a row of seventeenth-century timbered houses dating back to 1606 – making it one of the city’s oldest pubs. It was substantially altered in the 1960s, and these days it stands on a traffic island. But at one time it boasted extensive grounds – and amongst the facilities on offer was a bare-knuckle boxing ring. Plaque at The Hatchet Inn, Bristol The pub’s connection with Bristol’s boxing heroes is commemorated in a plaque illustrating five of Bristol’s champions – one of whom, Hen Pearce, features in Bloodie Bones: A Dan Foster Mystery. Hen Pearce (Detail) Bristol born Hen Pearce, The Game Chicken (1777 – 1809), a former butcher’s boy, became champion of England in 1805. He was a hero inside and outside the ring. In 1807 he climbed onto the roof of a building in Thomas Street, Bristol to rescue a servant girl from a fire. Always a popular figure, this courageous act inspired many eulogies in pr...

'We will have a fire': arson during eighteenth-century enclosures

Join our Winter Solstice Blog Hop! Thirty writers throw light on a dazzling range of topics . Follow the links at the end of this article to be enlightened and brightened by our blogs...  “Inclosure came and trampled on the grave Of labours rights and left the poor a slave And memorys pride ere want to wealth did bow Is both the shadow and the substance now.”    John Clare, The Mores     On 1 May 1794, the writer Hester (Thrale) Piozzi of Streatham Park recorded in her diary that the furze on the common had been set on fire in protest at the enclosure of land “which really & of just Right belonged to the poor of the Parish”. Yet even while she acknowledged that the protesters had justice on their side, she criticised them for not “going to Law like wise fellows” and concluded: “So senseless are Le Peuple , & so unfitted to be souverain”. The senseless poor of Streatham were not unique. During the eighteenth centu...