Ihadabreak 9yearsago.. UpinArdnamurchan & something clicked
WA documentary on Channel 4 tonight will focus on a remarkable wildlife photographer who found his own heaven in a small west coast community
ITH otters in the bay across the road, pine martens in his attic and eagles flying overhead, Kilchoan, in the Ardnamurchan peninsula, is the ideal base for a wildlife cameraman.
Hamza Yassin came to the village on holiday nine years ago.
On his return home to Northampton, he spent one week persuading his parents why he should move to the most westerly point on the British mainland and the next buying wellies and waterproofs. He’s been in Kilchoan ever since. He said: “A friend from university came up every year on holiday. She kept inviting me and I kept saying, ‘Maybe next year’.
“Then I saw a picture of a red deer stag. It had been taken in Ardnamurchan, with a mobile phone. That was it – I was going.
“When we got there, I was in awe. This was the best place ever. That day, I saw a golden eagle and a few red deer. Two weeks later, I was back for good.”
Hamza tells his amazing life story on a Channel 4 documentary, Scotland: My Life in the Wild tonight.
His parents brought the family to the UK from Sudan when he was eight. He always loved animals and despite being severely dyslexic, studied zoology. He said: “I wanted to be the next Sir David Attenborough. Or Steve Irwin. And if I couldn’t be those two guys, what’s the next best thing? The person filming them. I’d still be there with the animals, telling conservation stories to the world.”
Most wildlife filmmakers start off as researchers in Bristol, where the BBC’s natural history unit is based.
Hamza didn’t think anyone would want a dyslexic researcher. He had a degree but his showreel wasn’t good enough for this competitive profession.
It’s how, at the age of 21, he drove his cameras up to Ardnamurchan to kick off his career his own way.
His parents’ fears were justified. Hamza lived in his estate car for the first 11 months, washed his clothes at the
community centre and used the toilets at the jetty. But with his bouncing dreadlocks and huge cameras, he slowly became accepted in the village. And after a month, a local fisherman approached him in the pub.
“We have a question,” he said, on behalf of all the residents. “We’ve seen your car around the village for a month now. What are you actually doing here?”
When Hamza explained he was a wildlife cameraman, that was fine. In fact, it explained why he’d been spotted lurking in bushes with a long lens.
Someone suggested he move into a holiday caravan in winter. After a few years in holiday homes, work picked up and he bought a house overlooking the bay.
These days, he’s part of village life. In the documentary, he hides in the garage to film deer who visit his neighbour Les’s garden. He takes a cake round to another neighbour and they have tea and watch pine martens playing on her porch.
He said: “I’m invited to the regatta in summer, with a ceilidh afterwards. I’d never danced to Scottish music but I get stuck in. Now, I can dance no problem but that’s after a few years’ training. As soon as they include you and you’ve made that one friend in the village, it makes everything a lot easier.”
Now, if someone spots dolphins in the bay, they ring Hamza.
He said: “Everybody knows what I doo and I have 15050 pairs of eyes on wildlife for me. Someone will tell me, ‘Hamza, there’sere’s buzzards nestingting in that tree’. It’s lovely to have that relationship.”
If someone finds a sick ck animal, Hamza is their first st port of call.
He said: “That’s what at happened with the baby otter r I was looking after – I’m the e local wildlife expert. It was the same with a kittiwake. I was given it to look after then send back to the wild.”
With hair that now reaches down to the back of his calves, Hamza was never going to fade into the he background in the remote west coast of Scotland’s mainland.
He said: “I’m the only black person on the whole peninsula and most of the west coast. Even people in neighbouring islandislands know who I am. I’ll go over to MuMull or Muck and people will say, ‘HHey Hamza, how you doing?’” AlAll his work has a mission. He prespresents a CBeebies show, Let’s Go For A Walk, where he takes threethr kids out on a ramble and letslet them explore their own environment.en He said: “I want to get themth interested in mothermo nature. They are following in our footsteps.”foo HeH knows that some people,peo including the villagevilla postie, don’t think he shoulds be telling the worldworl about Scotland’s unspoiledunsp places but said: “TheThere are two ways of protectingprote nature. One is to lealeave it 100 per cent alone, which would be all good aand well if we hadn’t tampetampered with it in the first plaplace. “The other is to show people and bring them to have a look.lo As soon as they seewithseewith their own eeyes, they care about it more.” Scotland: My Life in the Wild is on Channel 4 tonight at 6pm.