Steve: near-miss made me grateful for kids
WILDLIFE presenter Steve Backshall has revealed that a brush with death made him appreciate being a father.
The Deadly 60 presenter, 47, almost drowned when he was kayaking in ice-cold rapids in the Himalayas for a TV show last year.
His boat capsized and he was trapped for five minutes until one of his team members managed to haul him out with a safety line.
Steve, who has three young children with Olympic rower Helen Glover, 34, tells today’s edition of Desert Island Discs that the incident gave him “a much greater appreciation of what I had and what I had to lose and what was really important. And increasingly that is fatherhood, that is having the opportunity to see my babies grow up.
“And I think I always, up until that moment, had been a bit of a searcher, looking for, trying to figure out what life is all about and what life is for.
“And I had thundered around the planet desperately doing all these crazy things in [an] attempt to find out what I was put here for. And then I found it in something as simple as becoming a dad. And it was such an emotional moment.”
He says: “I will always see that as being one of those big turning points in my life when everything has changed.”
Steve and wife Helen are parents to a two-year-old son called Logan and six-month-old twins – a boy and girl.
The broadcaster, whose Desert Island Discs include songs from Cat Stevens, Kings Of Leon and Radiohead, speaks of his hope lockdown will lead to a greater appreciation of the natural world.
● Desert Island Discs is on BBC Radio 4 today at 11am and on BBC Sounds.