How furious Springwatch fans got ‘too white’ star his job back
SPRINGWATCH presenter Martin Hughes-Games has revealed how angry fans and his co-stars helped him win his job back after he was fired for being ‘white and middle-class’.
The 61-year-old was sacked from the popular BBC2 show last autumn as executives sought to introduce a more diverse line-up.
But in an interview with The Mail on Sunday’s Event magazine today, Martin says interventions from the public and co-presenters Michaela Strachan and Chris Packham prompted a U-turn.
‘There was a tremendous response f rom viewers which I wasn’t expecting,’ he says. ‘Some people high up in the BBC were quite sur- prised by this. Chris and Michaela also sent emails. It was then decided that it would be an idea to keep me in the mix.’
In the interview today, he admits the original decision left him angry and he hits out at the BBC’s obsession with diversity. Although he concedes that the industry needs to reflect society as a whole, ‘people have got to be there on merit. It’s no good having people just because they’re the right colour’.
In the new series, which returns to our screens on May 29, Martin will present reports from around Britain, while new recruit Gillian Burke, 42, will join Michaela and Chris in the main outdoor studio.
Kenyan-born Gillian, a mother of two, came to Britain to study zoology at Bristol University and specialised in pest control. ‘This is all slightly surreal,’ she says. ‘I’ve come a long way from my maggot farming days when I was doing research on sheep blowfly strike.’