LIVES WELL-TRAVELLED
Eventually, by trial and error, the brothers were able to show that it was not necessary to replicate some local feature, which the bird would regard as ‘familiar’. Rather, being unobtrusive visually and aurally was enough to avoid alarming the subject. The portable animals and artificial scenery were largely abandoned by 1903, in favour of what is used today, a simple tent hide. Their fixed constructions, the stone house and turf house, have their modern counterpart in the chalet-type, timber hide on nature reserves today. In just over a decade, the brothers had created a whole new way of capturing nature. Their pioneering work, and showmanship, helped bring this to a wider audience. Nature books aimed at the ordinary man, woman and child, together with their lectures, helped kindle an enthusiasm for nature in British audiences that endures today. John Bevis is the author of The Keartons: Inventing nature photography, published by Uniformbooks, RRP £14. www.uniformbooks.co.uk The Keartons worked together in the field until 1908, by which time they had taken more than 30,000 photographs. After that, Richard, the methodical zoologist, settled into a demanding routine. Every spring, he travelled in Britain to collect field study material. Summers were spent writing a book and putting together a new illustrated talk. Autumn saw him back on the road, giving lectures. He became the most sought-after public lecturer of his day, inspiring thousands of audiences with a love of nature. His reference, educational and story books for adults and children ran to many editions. He died at home in Caterham, Surrey, in 1928. Cherry, on the other hand, reinvented himself as an international wildlife film-maker. In 1909, he travelled to East Africa. Here, he met Theodore Roosevelt on his post-presidential safari, and made the only film of Roosevelt in Africa. With the proceeds, he set up his own film company, Cherry Kearton Ltd. He produced newsreel and comedy films, and footage of wildlife expeditions he undertook in Africa, India, the Far East, Australia, the US and Canada. He served with the Legion of Frontiersmen in East Africa during World War I. In the 1920s and ’30s, he wrote travel books and animal stories for children. At his home in Tovil, Kent, he kept a menagerie of exotic animals. These included a chimpanzee called Mary, who smoked a pipe, drank mugs of tea, and was dressed in children’s clothes. Cherry died on the steps of BBC Bush House, London, in 1940.