COVER Kate Humble

Best buddies Kate Humble and Ben Fogle chat about their special bond, challenges and their latest TV adventure

Little did they know when they first met as presenters on the BBC’s Animal Park 16 years ago that it would be the beginning of a great friendship. Since then Kate Humble and Ben Fogle, recently reunited for the show set in Longleat Safari park, have forged a close friendship that has seen them both be there for each other through life’s twists and turns. “Kate has always been such a great role model for me,” says 43-year-old Ben. “She has taught me so many skills. We became such good friends on Animal Park. We laugh a lot. She also takes the mickey out of me! She keeps me on my toes and she will put me in my place when I need to be!” “I do try to keep Ben in order,” agrees Kate, laughing. “I remember watching him on Castaway with my husband Ludo. There was this fantastically posh blond boy with his shirt off and his dog. I said ‘I bet we will be seeing a lot of him on our television’. And what happens? The first

job he gets when he comes off the island is with me on Animal Park!” Since that day in 2001, Kate and Ben’s friendship has gone from strength to strength. Kate says she can still remember the day when Ben sought advice about a ‘girl he’d met in Hyde Park’. “He wanted to get some advice as he wanted to ask her out,” she recalls. “They are now married.” Kate is godmother to their four-year-old son, who is named after her husband. Speaking previously she said: “I’d been staying with Ben and Marina when they were expecting, and saw a board in their kitchen with potential baby names, one of which was Penguin. I said ‘You cannot call a child Penguin!’ Ben said: ‘Why not? It’s lovely.’ I said: ‘I swear, I will disown you, everyone will disown you.’ A few weeks later he rang to say their baby boy had been born. I was so excited and asked ‘And what have you called him?’ Ben went quiet. I thought he’d really called him Penguin! Then he said ‘We’ve called him Ludo’ – after my husband. I burst into tears.” Kate also recalls the time Ben told her he was doing the Marathon des Sables. “We used to stay in a cottage when we were filming and it was always me who used to get up early and go out running with his dog while he lay in bed until the last possible moment. One morning he told me he was going to do it and I thought he was utterly ridiculous! ‘You can barely walk, let alone run’, I told him. Six weeks later, he did, indeed, do it and that was the start of Ben, the adventurer.” As they chat, it’s easy to see why they get on so well. Both famed for their travels around the world, they readily admit to loving nothing better than pushing themselves to the limit. “I do love it,” says Kate. “But I also feel very humbled to be doing what I am doing. I really honestly still can’t believe I am making TV programmes. To be entrusted with the task of being the person that brings information from different parts of the world is amazing.” From India and America to all around Europe, both Ben and Kate have travelled the globe. But does she find it tough being away from her husband? “I’ve got used to it now,” she admits. “I know for Ben, he finds it really hard, particularly when the kids were very tiny. Every time he went away, his son grew another inch or his daughter Iona had said another word. For me, not having kids, I didn’t have to worry about that aspect. I’ve always travelled and my husband’s job has often taken him away. We’ve often been apart. It’s the nature of the work.” Kate has always talked openly about her decision to not have children on the grounds it was never something she envisaged happening. Animals are, instead, very much part of her life and today living on a farm in Wales, she says, is her idea of heaven. “I do actually really miss the animals,” the 48-year-old reveals. “That’s when I get homesick.” Like Kate, Ben is also a big animal lover and it’s this shared passion that is another reason why they were so popular on Animal Park, which ran until 2009. It was, say the pair, an easy decision when they were approached about reuniting to make the recent one-off Animal Park. “Everyone has such a fondness for Longleat,” explains Kate. “We’ve all grown up together and it was a great pleasure to return. It felt quite nostalgic and in a way, Ben and I did grow up together on that programme when it comes to our professional lives.” “Going back was like that reassuring feeling when you see old school friends,” agrees Ben. “It was so humbling to hear the roar of the lions and a privilege to spend time with the keepers who look after the animals 365 days a year.” Ben says he’d consider making a new series of Animal Park if schedules allowed it to happen. But listening to both him and Kate chat about their work commitments it could be difficult to fit it in. Kate, for instance, returned to the UK recently from India but after a few days was off again to France and then it’s over to Sweden to film a new TV show. But now he is a dad, Ben says he tries to be very strict with his diary. “I do like to test myself but at the same time, it’s about finding that balance. And I do need a strong woman. Marina, my wife, tells me when I have pushed it too far!” He says he loves nothing better than sharing his adventure stories with his two children. Would he ever up sticks and move to another country? “My wife still braces herself every time I come home,” he admits. “I do get excited when I go away and I’ve just actually got back from a trip to New Zealand. I’d go there in a flash but we’ve got lots of extended family and we are all very close.” For now, Ben says he is happy doing different things. Kate also loves variety. “There are a ridiculous number of things I’d still love to do,” she adds. “I know I’ll die with a bucket list as long as it is now. And for that, I’m really grateful.” The Animal Park Easter special aired on April 10 but you can catch it on BBC iPlayer. Several summer specials of Animal Park are also planned

‘Kate keeps me on my toes and she will put me in my place when I need to be!”