‘It’s never too late to follow your dreams’
Ever felt you wished you were doing something else with your life? Meet the women who made big, brave decisions and did just that!
Three women changed their lives for the better
‘Listening to David Attenborough changed everything’
Amy Heath, 41, from London, was working in the glamorous world of make-up when a visit to see her hero made her realise something important. Here, she explains…
‘Ilove my morning routine: pulling on my wellies over my cargo trousers, walking across ZSL London Zoo towards the animal enclosures and getting started on breakfast feeds. Our playful giraffe, Ellish, often extends her long neck and pokes out her tongue to try to lick my head – her favourite naughty trick – making me laugh. I have to pinch myself that this really is my job. Yet it hasn’t always been this way…
As a teen, my dream was to work with animals, but all my school career adviser could suggest was to become a vet. I didn’t have the academic mindset to follow that path, so I took after my glamorous mum and became a make-up artist. I looked stylish, enjoyed my work and got lots of beauty freebies, but I always felt like there was something missing.
Then, when I was 31, I took a trip to Brighton to hear Sir David Attenborough give a talk. As I listened to him speak about his amazing life around animals,
I saw the passion he had for his career and realised I’d never be truly fulfilled unless I was working with animals myself.
Back to college
After doing some research, I applied to Capel Manor College in London to study Level 2 animal management. I threw myself into learning alongside my day job in make-up.
One day, chatting to a client at work, I discovered she was a keeper at ZSL London Zoo. I excitedly explained about the course I was doing. She said the zoo was looking for a volunteer keeper at the reptile house and encouraged me to submit my CV.
I did so straight away and couldn’t believe it when I got the position. In February 2012, I started at London Zoo, juggling my make-up work around
‘I have to pinch myself that this really is my job’
‘Even a hippo sneezing in my face didn’t put me off!’
volunteering. Sweeping and shovelling animal waste was exhausting, but no matter how tired I was at the end of the day, I’d leave the zoo floating on air! Every interaction thrilled me, from feeding the tiny, intricate frogs to cleaning out the magnificent snakes and tending to the huge Galápagos tortoises. And soon I was allowed to work with different animals, too. I encountered so many experiences – even a pygmy hippo sneezing in my face and covering me in mucus didn’t put me off!
I passed my college course and by December 2012, I beat nearly 1,000 applicants to get the full-time position of trainee zookeeper. It meant I could finally give up my make-up career and concentrate all my time on animals.
Today, almost seven years on, I’m a senior keeper. I hand-reared our giant anteater, Beanie, after her mum wasn’t able to feed her, and have trained three very large, spiky porcupines to walk out into our amphitheatre space, where I give talks to our visitors about our different animals.
My ‘full-circle’ moment, though, was in August 2016 when Sir David Attenborough visited our zoo and I got to introduce him to Beanie. As I stood there holding our lovely anteater, with him chatting to me and stroking Beanie, I just couldn’t believe it. Here was the man who had inspired my whole career – though I was too star-struck to tell him that! As soon as he left, I burst into tears; it was one of the proudest moments of my life and I realised how much I’d achieved since hearing his inspiring talk all those years before.’
• For more information on London Zoo, visit zsl.org