Finding Hope In Lost Valley
The TV adventurer and author believes Scotland saved his life
SIMON REEVE isn’t sure why he chose Scotland, but he knew he had to go somewhere. His life was a mess – he was depressed, he’d considered suicide. His instincts told him he had to find some purpose and meaning in his life. And 500 miles later, he found it – deep in the Lost Valley of Glencoe.
Even now, some 30 years later, Simon is still uncertain what took him to Scotland. He had no family connections in the country and, for a lad growing up in inner-city London, the Highlands was a pretty distant place.
But the effect was striking – he came back from Glencoe a better version of himself, he says, and ready to grasp what life had to offer.
There’s a good chance you know what happened next. Simon Reeve – the boy who, in his own words, “fell through the cracks” – became one of television’s most popular documentary makers, specialising in exotic and sometimes dangerous destinations, most recently exploring South America for the BBC.
It’s fair to say he’s relishing the way his life has turned out. But how he got to this point is complicated.
Simon, who’s 50, now lives on Dartmoor with his wife and 11-year-old son. He loves it there, but says that even now he sometimes finds it hard to settle.
Part of him still pines for city life and there are times when he’s creeped out by the fact he can walk his dogs for hours and never see a soul. He struggled with the isolation and repetitiveness of the Covid-19 lockdowns – what does a traveller do when he can’t travel?
Simon says it also took him a long time to discover that travel was what he actually wanted to do with his life, having grown up in a place – Acton in west London
– where he felt like he didn’t fit in and struggled to find motivation.
“I was quite lost and didn’t swim well in that large pool,” he says. “It’s a scary time as well, being 12, 13, 14, at a comprehensive in inner London or any city.
“People forget, as an adult, how frightening it is –
I used to fear getting stabbed on the way to school every day. My life was really keeping my head down, it certainly wasn’t about raising it above the parapet.”
Simon says he had a particularly difficult time at school and describes himself in his mid-teens as a pathetic young lad. “I flunked out of school with basically no qualifications,” he says. “I was on the dole, I was very depressed and suicidal – I was a really lost lad.
“I fell through the cracks – university wasn’t an option and nobody in my family was in a trade that I could easily
“There’s a part of me that has always Irish” wanted to be Scottish or Welsh or
follow. I floundered and sank, and I found myself on the edge of a bridge.”
Simon says he genuinely could have jumped, things were that bad, but instead something pulled him back – which is where Scotland comes into the story.
“I went on an adventure to Scotland and climbed up into the Lost Valley. I found a bit of physical self-confidence that I hadn’t had before,” he says.
“I’ve often thought back to that time in the decades since – the sheer critical value of us having wild places and being able to experience a bit of wild life is essential.
“It was also a profound moment of change. I came back from the Lost Valley improved, and a slightly better version of myself, and was able to grasp a bit more of life. Scotland saved me. Scotland really, genuinely, saved me.”
On why he thinks he chose to go to Scotland in that moment of crisis, he laughs and says it might be because he and his mate Dwight used to watch the VHS of Highlander so much.
“I loved Highlander,” he says, “and there’s been a part of me that has always wanted to be Scottish or Welsh or Irish. I think it’s more tribal or cultural.
“I grew up on the edge of inner-city London, when it was almost certainly the most diverse city that’s ever existed on Earth, and for me as a relatively working-class white lad there just wasn’t a culture for me there.
“I’m one of those people that’s from anywhere rather than somewhere.”
Simon thinks this lack of identity can still be a problem for young men today.
“We’re very bad as a country, still today, shockingly, at guiding young men like me,” he says. “They’re in that
hinterland. I’ve been held up by 13-year-olds with Kalashnikovs and you don’t think of them as boys.
“They’re looking for purpose and meaning, and it’s more critical than we realise. A lot of our identity issues nationally can be traced back to what is basically a profound need for clan, community and tribe.
“I did wish, and I still do now, that I had more of an identity that I could own myself and pass on to my son.”
Simon says he’s realised over the years of making documentaries that a sense of identity and contentment can often come from travel – a job he got into following a number of lucky breaks.
Having worked as a postboy on The Sunday Times, he started helping out on investigative reports before writing a book on al-qaeda. He then became a regular TV pundit on terrorism, which is where the BBC spotted him and asked him to make documentaries.
Having made more than 25 TV series, he obviously still delights in the job and says there are moments he’s had abroad – swinging over a river in Burma or joining an El Salvadorian SWAT team – where he’s felt so alive that every bit of him is heightened.
“It genuinely has given me some totally unbelievable experiences and moments, and it’s hard to convey in a sense because so much of what we see on TV is staged and scripted and posed and sometimes faked.
“We genuinely haven’t done that – we put ourselves into situations which are spine-tinglingly beautiful and also stomach-churningly scary. I’m an emotional wreck as a result of it, but I wouldn’t have it any other way!”
Simon is also a defender of what he sees as the right to travel, even in a world where he’s seen the damage it can do. “We’ve made ourselves gods on our planet,” he says, “and we need to think more carefully and intelligently about how we protect it in the long term.”
He also believes governments should be investing much more in protecting parts of the world where biodiversity is directly threatened by human activity.
“I used to fear getting stabbed on the way to school. My life was down” about keeping my head
However, Simon also believes tourism has a positive part to play.
“Travel and tourism provide people around the planet with an economic incentive to look after wild spaces, national parks and marine protected areas,” he says.
He also believes there was proof of it during the pandemic, when poaching, land grabs and deforestation got worse. The return of tourism, he says, “brings more eyes back” and acts as a protecting force.
As for the pandemic more personally, Simon found it difficult. “I struggled a lot,” he says. “I struggled with the lack of excitement and I wasn’t great at dealing with the ‘Groundhog Day’ existence. It took a lot of dog walking to find some solace and a lot of exploring locally to realise I could still get pleasure from my travel existence.”
Simon also happily admits stress can bring out the less attractive parts of his personality – grumpiness, stubbornness, stroppiness. “I’m different when the TV cameras are rolling,” he says. “I can recognise how I come across when the red light goes on.”
Sometimes the only thing Simon needs to feel himself again is human contact. In fact – perhaps surprisingly for an adventurer and traveller – given a choice between a busy café in Glasgow and a quiet spot overlooking a fjord in Norway, he says he’d choose the café every time.
“I love the landscapes,” he says, “and I love wildlife, but it’s human beings I enjoy more than anything.”
However, his particular and lasting love for Scotland has only deepened since that trip to Glencoe when he was a teenager.
“Forgive the arrogance or the conceit,” he says, “but I do consider that valley in Glencoe, I consider it home.
“It might be on the outer reaches of my home, but I feel a direct geographic and emotional connection to it.”
It’s not the only Scottish place that stirs the seasoned traveller. On the classic question, Glasgow or Edinburgh, his answer is, “To live, Glasgow. To visit, Edinburgh.”
There are also plenty of other places in Scotland that get to the soul of this London boy.
“I’ve been a lot around planet Earth, but no train journey moves me like the West Highland Line,” he says. “And arriving by ferry in to Tobermory is still, for me, a moment to treasure forever.
“Trekking in the Cairngorms is something that can get my heart beating just like travelling in the remotest parts of planet Earth.
“We have such a staggeringly beautiful island. And we have no idea how lucky we are.”