Daily Mail - Daily Mail Weekend Magazine
WHY NOT TAKE YOUR WALK ON THE wild side?
Launching this year’s wildlife photography contest, Clare Balding says don’t let the current crisis stop you enjoying the creatures around you – capture them on camera, or even use your phone.by Richard Barber
Who better than Clare Balding to brighten up these dark days? The BBC broadcaster has been a beacon of positivity across TV and radio for 25 years, covering everything from Trooping the Colour to Crufts and six Olympic Games.
A countrywoman through and through, Clare was raised at the Kingsclere racing stables in Hampshire owned by her father Ian, the trainer of Derby and Arc de Triomphe winners as well as the Queen’s horses (Clare was also Champion Lady Rider in 1990). She chronicled her colourful life growing up with 100 thoroughbreds, packs of dogs and breakfasts with Her Majesty in her 2012 memoir My Animals And Other Family.
Yet perversely, the trappings of screen success mean she spends less time in the country than she might like. ‘I’ve lived in London far longer than where I was raised in Hampshire – right next to the Watership Down hill alongside Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Sydmonton Court estate,’ she says. ‘And I’d struggle if I didn’t have some sort of park or the river on my doorstep.’
So she was more than thrilled to be asked to be head judge on Weekend magazine’s Great British Wildlife Photography Challenge. We may be restricted as to how far from home we can roam in present times but, as Clare points out, there’s a whole world of wildlife in your back garden or right outside your window. ‘I’d say we’re in a mental health crisis right now, and I can’t help wondering if some of it is caused by too much looking in at ourselves,’ she says. ‘Wildlife offers us a rich alternative.
‘Get your nose out of that ipad! We have an unprecedented challenge across the country, and with limited access to the outdoor world it’s even more important to take notice of it when we’re on our daily walk or whatever exercise we choose to do. Stop and smell the jasmine, admire the magnolia across the road before the petals fall, savour the budding plants and enjoy the birdsong. And when the restrictions are finally lifted we should make the most of the natural world around us.’
One bonus of our restricted movement is that there’s bound to be a surge in quirky photos of squirrels, frogs and the like doing odd things in our gardens. These entries are a joy because there’s so much beauty in the minutiae, says Clare. ‘Our brains need focus. It’s a trigger for happiness and it’s better to look outwards rather than put ourselves in the foreground of every selfie. There’s so much to enjoy in your garden or local park, in the woods or the sky you can see from the window. At this glorious time of year, when everything is bursting into life, take time to zoom in on it and really appreciate what’s there. It’s never been more precious.’
And it’s also been reported that our wildlife is enjoying a surge during the respite from humans. There have been more sightings of oystercatchers, sandwich terns and ringed plovers on undisturbed beaches, while moles are venturing above ground near footpaths. Stoats, weasels and deer also seem to be thriving.
‘Anything that encourages people to look at the beauty in British wildlife gets my vote,’ says Clare. ‘This contest can be joyinducing because the combination of concentration and creativity could produce a beautiful work of art. I can’t wait to see the entries.’
Clare will be joined by judge emeritus David Suchet, back for a third year, plus animal lover and keen gardener Kelly Brook, Countryfile’s Steve Brown, zoologist and presenter Lucy Cooke, and our technical judges Gray Levett and Simon Stafford. They’re looking for photos of British wildlife in its natural habitat (the rules are overleaf), and you can submit images taken any time after 1 October 2019, a full 12 months before this year’s competition closes. So have a rummage through your back catalogue.
Along with a top-of-therange Nikon package, the winners will have their work published in Weekend magazine. We’ve celebrated stags, stoats, bees and bush crickets in the past, but you don’t need to go to the Cairngorms to capture a terrific image. As Clare says, there’s a wealth of wildlife on your doorstep.
Having owned a decent camera in the past, these days Clare takes pictures with her iphone, particularly when she’s recording her walking show Ramblings for Radio 4. ‘Landscapes are easy because they don’t move,’ she says. ‘But I try to take shots of whatever wildlife is around. Birds are the biggest challenge – you have to be so quick to capture anything worthwhile. Many use social media practically, but I use it to post photos of the world around me, including my cat Button, because she’s as cute as one. Then there’s my 15-year-old Tibetan terrier who has the now fashionable name Archie. Harry and Meghan clearly got the idea from me.’
Clare has been presenting Ramblings for two decades now. ‘It became
‘There’s so much to enjoy in your local park’
clear there’s wildlife wherever you are,’ she says. ‘There’s so much to see in the open spaces in cities, it’s taught me not to look down at my feet.’
She doesn’t shout about it, but Clare is well connected. Her first pony came courtesy of the Queen, a Shetland called Valkyrie given to her father. ‘Valkyrie had taught Prince
Andrew and Prince Edward how to ride and would not be subject to anyone – Royal Family or commoner. I suspect this is why the Queen was so fond of her,’ Clare wrote in her memoir. ‘Whenever she came to see her racehorses, Valkyrie and I would also be presented. At the end of the line of gleaming, fit, polished blue-bloods would be this hairy Shetland pony with her equally scruffy-looking rider, neither of whom ever quite got the hang of the curtsey. The Queen smiled, crouched down and always had a long chat with Valkyrie.’
Clare’s brother Andrew has now taken over their father’s stables, while her uncle Toby trained winners of the Grand National, Cheltenham Gold Cup and Champion Hurdle. ‘Andrew has more than 200 horses and 11 staff,’ says Clare. ‘I can’t imagine the stress. It’s not something I could do.’
Not that everyone could do her job. The young Clare couldn’t have foreseen that she’d end up one of our most respected broadcasters, but she had a desire to be independent. ‘I was determined to make my own living and be in control. It’s turned out my only constraints are the sporting calendar.’ She loves both sport and tellas ing people’s stories. ‘I see my job that of the educated viewer. I’ve got to ask questions people want the answers to, but I’m curious so I like that. At functions my mother has asked me to stop interviewing people, but I can’t help it. If they say something interesting, I find it impossible not to ask more.’
With interviewing on TV though, she had to learn to resist the temptation to show what she knows. ‘In other words, don’t show off,’ she laughs. ‘In my 20s, I was covering the Arc de Triomphe in Paris and there I was chatting on air to the actor Omar Sharif, a celebrated racing fan. One half of my brain was telling me I needed to make him see I knew my racing, while the other half was saying, “No you don’t. This is for the viewers.” I managed to keep a lid on it but it was a battle.’
Her first TV presenting job was
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Continued from page 5 the Badminton Horse Trials in the mid-90s. ‘I can’t say my heart was hammering, but then it’s harder to address 200 people on a stage than to look into a camera. I was properly scared when I first helped present Sports Personality Of The Year in 1999. I recognised so many of the people in that room. Alex Ferguson was sitting here, Muhammad Ali there... But Andy Murray recently said being nervous is a good thing – it makes you perform better. The adrenaline’s pumping. It’s a sign you’re taking it seriously.’
She doesn’t hesitate when asked for the highlight of her career. ‘The 2012 Olympics. I was just one of the presenters, but I was the main one for the Paralympics a few weeks later. It was electrifying, to be part of a bubble that everyone was focused on.’ Throughout her coverage of the Olympics, Clare didn’t check how social media was reacting to her interviews. ‘I wanted to be immersed in the job,’ she says. The result was that she missed the universal praise for her skills – that she actually listened to what people said then responded with a relevant follow-on question.
She’s been instrumental in flying the flag for female broadcasters, and doesn’t need much prompting to discuss the gender pay gap. ‘I feel strongly in equal pay for men and women. Things are changing for the better,’ she says. ‘There’s a stronger solidarity between women in the same industry, looking out for each other and giving support and advice. That’s a really good outcome. My earnest hope is that the time will come when this conversation won’t be necessary.’
She has many female friends among the sports presenters – Gabby Logan, Hazel Irvine and Sue Barker for starters. ‘I’m also friends with Sarah Montague and Mishal Husain, who I took to the Derby in 2018 with her husband. I get on very well with Fiona Bruce, and I have long chats with Kirsty Wark when we bump into each other. There are some brilliant women at the BBC.’
But there’s no job she likes better than Ramblings. ‘I describe it as a walking programme, listeners can follow on a map or do it themselves. My only rule is the people who take part really are walkers. I won’t just go for a stroll with someone who wants to discuss their charity.’
She’s a big advocate of walking and can’t wait to get back to it. ‘I believe there’s a desire to return to a simpler lifestyle. Walking is a great way of doing that. It gives you thinking time out in the elements, exploring the landscape.’ So what are her favourite walks? ‘Northumberland is my No 1 county, and anything on the north-east coastal path. It’s rugged, there are castles and hardly anyone around. I love Cornwall too, and the wildness of the north coast. Inland, the Dales Way and the Peak District are lovely. We have so much variety.’
Clare seems to lead something
of a charmed existence, yet there have been bumps along the way. In 2009 she was diagnosed with thyroid cancer. ‘It’s easy to say when it’s been caught early and the treatment has worked, but I didn’t find it too traumatic.’
She got through it with the help of Alice Arnold, the former Radio 4 newscaster now presenter on radio station Mellow Magic, with whom Clare entered into a civil partnership in 2006 and married in 2015. ‘I like the verb “married”. It’s important the law recognises our relationship in the same way it does my brother and his wife’s. What we have can’t be put in inverted commas any more.’
Alice runs her, she says. ‘I’d be a
bit chaotic alone.’ Clare once said of herself that living with her must be like living with Tigger. ‘But I’ve revised that to it must be like living with a Labrador puppy: huge bursts of energy and then a bit of a flop.’
She will soon be directing all that energy into picking Weekend’s winning photographers. ‘I like that the competition is British-based,’ she says. ‘It’s about home, what we have here in the UK, the world right in front of you. Pick up your camera and surprise yourself.’
‘There’s a desire to return to a simpler life’
Clare has asked that her judge’s fee be donated to the Tofauti Foundation run by Olympic gold medalwinning hockey player Crista Cullen and her family, which is dedicated to conservation work in Kenya.