Repost: Gerald Durrell and The Saturday Show
This one has already appeared a few weeks ago, but it's relevant here too.

When I was young, my biggest hero was Gerald Durrell. I read everything he wrote over and over (actually, I've just been rereading them all for the first time in years and still loving them). I mentioned this to a friend of ours who worked as a researcher on a Saturday morning kids' show. She said 'Oh my god, you should write in - we've been wanting to get him on the show for ages'

So I wrote in. The show had a 'dream come true' spot - a Jim'll Fix It clone where kids could write in and get something they always wanted. A few weeks later my mum told me they'd written back to say I wouldn't be getting my dream come true, but Durrell would be coming on the show and would I like to go? Which I naturally did.

The show was bloody awful (my biggest memory is being told during the commercial break that they were going to be playing some music when they came back in, and they wanted us all to pretend to be headbanging to it). And then came the Dream Come True bit, and I was astonished to see my face on the screen and my name read out. My evil mum had lied to me - and you could clearly see my mouth going 'what the...?'

So they flew us out to Jersey for a four-day holiday, and I got to be shown round the zoo by the great beardy one himself. He was lovely, and I was a precocious child with an incredibly posh accent. I got on the Channel Island news and said some cringeworthy things ('You said you'd really like to go on a collecting trip with him but you didn't think it would be possible, why's that?' 'Well, these things are really expensive, you know? And also I don't think I'd really have the time'). But all in all, it was one of the best things that ever happened to me.
( flatfrog Staring vacantly into space, Thu 11 Jun 2009, 18:24, 1 reply)

A worthy hero
the guy was worth his weight in gold for his efforts for conservation
( Jahled Three shades of black, Thu 11 Jun 2009, 18:52, closed)