A QUESTION OF WILL

Jane Goodall, DBE, possibly the world’s most famous scientist, at least outside of the UK, where despite living in Bournemouth since 1938 she remains little known, turned 90 on 3 April, just before this edition of this issue of Writing Magazine was published. What’s even less known in the UK is that primatologist, educator and environmental campaigner, Dr Goodall has been a prolific and sometimes bestselling author for over 50 years, her first book My Friends the Wild Chimpanzees, being published in 1969, her most recent (of over two dozen titles), The Book of Hope (co-authored with Douglas Abrams and Gail Hudson), being published in 2021.

In 2014, during an interview with Lauren Barker for Australia’s Weekend Edition, Jane Goodall observed, ‘I always loved animals. And when I was ten, I decided I had to go to Africa and live with animals and write books about them.’ And she did just that, which should be encouragement to any would-be writer. As Jane says in The Book of Hope, ‘Hope is often misunderstood. People tend to think that it is simply passive wishful thinking: I hope something will happen but I’m not going to do anything about it. This is indeed the opposite of real hope, which requires action and engagement.’

As with the environment, so with writing. It’s true that manuscripts don’t get written by wishful thinking; if you want to do something, whether that’s to be an international advocate for Mother Nature, or a published writer, action and engagement are essential. GD