Sunday Mirror (Northern Ireland)
BEN FOGLE’S COUNTRY
BEN FOGLE ON HIS BEST
HE’S climbed Everest, raced to the South Pole and rowed the Atlantic, but it was Countryfile that gave Ben Fogle a special challenge – eating stinging nettles.
The posh adventurer was pitched against rival TV nature presenter Chris Packham in the World Stinging Nettle Eating Championship in Marshwood, Dorset.
The nettles made Ben’s lips swell and his tongue turn black – but he refused to let Springwatch host Chris, 57, win.
Ben was eventually defeated by a burly Dorset farmer but still crows, if you’ll pardon the wildlife pun, about beating Packham.
He recalls: “Of course I gloated. It’s not very often you get to beat Chris Packham by eating more stinging nettles than him – but I had a very sore mouth afterwards.”
The nettle showdown came in 2009 and Ben tells the story as Countryfile is celebrating 30 years on the BBC this weekend.
Another assignment took intrepid Ben, 44, to the Isle of Man to try his luck in the 2007 World Tin Bath Championships, where competitors propel decorated tubs across Castletown harbour.
But superfit Ben was quickly out of contention. He’d barely taken to the water when his green tub, adorned with the Countryfile logo, sank, plunging him into the freezing water.
He says: “I didn’t get on very well at all. I actually ended up in an ambulance with mild hypothermia. It was bitterly cold.”
Then there was the great worm scandal... of sorts... where Ben was thought to have used an F-word.
SUCKERS
He was following a worm charming contest in Wiltshire and signed off by saying: “Let’s go and count the slippery little suckers.”
But a sound problem left some of the audience thinking he’d used a different word.
Ben explains: “It actually went to the BBC Board of Trustees to decide whether I had sworn or not. They worked out there was a slight sound problem, but it did sound like I was using a different word.
“I quite obviously didn’t swear – not on a pre-recorded Sunday programme! That was the biggest controversy I ever had. Apart from that, I was just having fun in the countryside.”
Ben was hired after Beeb producers spotted him on reality show Castaway 2000, where 36 people lived for a year in a self-built commune on the Scottish isle of Taransay.
He had never heard of Countryfile but was lured by the promise of outlandish outdoor challenges and the chance to work alongside childhood hero John Craven, now 77.
It was a dream ticket for Ben, who became a firm favourite with five million viewers.
His first Countryfile piece was filmed in Aviemore, in the Scottish Highlands, in 2001.
He says: “I was terrified – it was my first time as a presenter and I was doing a piece on dog sledding. But I loved it – and the dogs helped. I knew of John Craven from Newsround and I got rather starstruck.
“He is a national treasure, he’s amazing.
“Countryfile can wear you down, it’s a lot of travel and a lot of cold weather filming during the long, dark, winter months.
“But he was always such a strength, he never complained – and he’s still soldiering on.”
Just weeks after Ben started, rural life in Britain was devastated by the 2001 outbreak of foot and mouth disease. Six million animals were culled, at a cost of billions to the economy.
The crisis drove some bereft farmers to suicide.
Ben spent months charting how it had shattered the countryside. And images of piles of burning livestock are as vivid as ever. He goes on: “What I saw still deeply affects me. I still remember the farmers I met
and the families of farmers who had taken their own lives.
“It had such a monumental impact and we had the time to go in depth and explore the emotional impact.
“I wasn’t a farmer. I was a city dwelling Londoner, yet it became a huge part of my life.
“I remain incredibly proud of the impact of the work Countryfile did.
“Anyone who witnessed foot and mouth first hand will never forget it.
“I still meet farmers who can’t talk about it. It’s too emotional, too hard for them to go
back to that dreadful period.” Ben credits his eight-year stint on Countryfile with turning him from little-known reality star to respected nature presenter.
He adds: “I was still on Castaway 2000 when I was approached to present Countryfile. I was told by one of the Castaway production crew, who sniggered a bit when he mentioned it.
“But I really cut my teeth there. I learned a huge amount about Britain and a huge amount about presenting.
“It gave me a great step up in the world of broadcasting and I miss it dearly.” Ben says he enjoyed a great rapport with Countryfile’s loyal army of viewers, receiving many knitted socks and pots of honey in the post from the show’s enthusiasts.
PLUMMY
But despite this, he was axed in 2009 when Countryfile moved to its current 7pm slot.
He recently claimed he was dropped because BBC bosses deemed his plummy, public school accent “inaccessible” for a primetime show.
Since then, he has presented a number of adventure shows and returned to host a Countryfile spin-off in 2014. And he often snuggles up on the sofa with wife Marina, son Ludo, eight, and daughter Iona, seven, to tune in on a Sunday night to see his old colleagues.
Ben, now UN Patron of the Wilderness, sums up Countryfile’s appeal: “It gives everyone in the cities a look at a simpler, happier, more beautiful way of living.
“It taught me so much about rural Britain and how humans are supposed to live. I developed a passion for the wilderness and a drive to preserve it and share it with the world.”