Pilgrim journey helped me with my grief
WILDLIFE presenter Michaela Strachan decided to take part in the new series of The Pilgrimage to help her cope with the grief of losing one of her best friends to breast cancer.
The Springwatch star – a breast cancer survivor – admitted the past year has been “a shocker”.
Michaela’s sister-in-law also died, and two of her close friends lost children.
“These were people our age. I know I’m getting on but I’m 57 – I shouldn’t know this number of people who have died.
“I went from her funeral, basically, to The Pilgrimage.
“So I was carrying grief, which made it a different journey.”
The TV star, also known for presenting the long-running Really Wild Show with Chris Packham then Steve Backshall, said she would not have processed her grief without going on The Pilgrimage.
The show sees a group of seven celebrities with different faiths and beliefs walk the North Wales Pilgrim’s Way – a route which celebrates early Christian saints.
Filmed across three hour-long episodes, Michaela walks with Eton School-educated Spencer Matthews, a former reality TV star turned entrepreneur, who was christened Church of England, and Sonali Shah, a journalist and TV presenter who was raised in a Jain household.
They were joined by comedian
Eshaan Akbar, a lapsed Muslim who walked in memory of his late mother; Amanda Lovett, a practising Catholic who starred in the first series of BBC’S The Traitors, actor Tom Rosenthal, star of Channel 4’s Friday Night Dinner, who has Jewish heritage; and former model Christine Mcguinness, who said while she is spiritual, she does not practise a particular faith.
Michaela says: “I don’t think I would have processed the grief. “I would have compartmentalised it. I can be quite controlling in my own emotions sometimes.”
On medical advice, Michaela underwent a double mastectomy when she was 48 following her own breast cancer diagnosis. Speaking about her late friend Lucy Bowden, she says: “We were friends through work and she ended up being series producer on the Watches, but we met on The Really Wild Show.
“The amazing thing about my job is sometimes you can meet people, and go on a life-changing filming trip and you become really close.
“We became particularly close in recent years because she had breast cancer. She was diagnosed two years after me with a very similar diagnosis.
“I was one of the first people she found when she said ‘I’ve got breast cancer.’ I said, ‘I’m going to help you through this, you’re going
to be okay. You’re going to be like me – same diagnosis’. And she was for a while. But then for some reason it came back. We got incredibly close during that period and I was with her just before she died.
“It really hit me hard on The Pilgrimage, but when I look back we had some incredibly meaningful conversations. Meaning of life, death, what are we all here for?”
Michaela adds: “Lucy would’ve been the one during The Pilgrimage I would have phoned and gone, ‘oh my God, you’d never guess what Spencer’s just said’.all the gossip.”
The TV presenter, who was signed to a record label before working on pop shows in the 1980s, reflects on her three-decade-long career presenting wildlife shows. She is now best known for doing the Springwatch, Autumnwatch and Winterwatch shows on BBC Two with Packham since 2011.
She lives in South Africa with her husband Nick Chevallier, a wildlife director and cameraman.
Their 18-yearold son Oliver recently moved to the UK to work.
Michaela says she has never felt that her age has counted against her during her TV career: “I’ve never thought about it. Your knowledge is really respected and hopefully I’ve been an inspiration for women to continue. I was given an honorary doctorate in science last year, which part of me found very funny because I don’t have an academic background. I’m not an expert. I’m not knowledgeable in that way.
“I left school at 16. I went to musical theatre college so I felt complete imposter syndrome taking it.
“But I do respect the fact that I’ve been a role model for other people going into wildlife.
“It occurred to me the other day I’m probably the UK’S longest-running female wildlife presenter.”
She laughs at the idea anyone would compare her to Sir David
Attenborough, and says he is irreplaceable. “David Attenborough is a legend.who would replace David?
“We were all watching his programmes. He understands television programming so well because he was head of BBC Two.
“He commissioned programmes and because of his longevity we’ve all grown up with him.
“There is room now for different people – Chris brings something very different, and Steve Backshall brings something very different to David and Chris.
“And I bring something totally different again.”
‘We became incredibly close’