0:00:02 > 0:00:06Tonight, we've got rather a different programme for you.
0:00:06 > 0:00:09In 1954, David Attenborough
0:00:09 > 0:00:12embarked on a ground-breaking television series.
0:00:12 > 0:00:15Watched by millions of viewers across Britain,
0:00:15 > 0:00:20it became the most popular wildlife programme of its time.
0:00:20 > 0:00:23And it launched David Attenborough as a wildlife presenter.
0:00:23 > 0:00:28If you don't want this, I'm warning you, I'm giving it to Robert.
0:00:28 > 0:00:32Zoo Quest filmed a number of animal collecting expeditions,
0:00:32 > 0:00:33organised by the London Zoo.
0:00:37 > 0:00:39And brought to the screen
0:00:39 > 0:00:42places and animals that had never been seen before.
0:00:42 > 0:00:46It was the first natural history series on film
0:00:46 > 0:00:48that the BBC had shot.
0:00:48 > 0:00:52Zoo Quest was first broadcast in the 1950s.
0:00:52 > 0:00:57Over a decade before colour television came to the UK.
0:00:57 > 0:01:00So the entire series was shown in black and white.
0:01:02 > 0:01:05A few months ago, a remarkable discovery was made
0:01:05 > 0:01:08in the vaults of the BBC Natural History Unit.
0:01:08 > 0:01:10An archivist was checking through
0:01:10 > 0:01:13some of the film cans from Zoo Quest.
0:01:13 > 0:01:16She took a closer look at these reels of film
0:01:16 > 0:01:21and realised that she had unearthed a piece of television history.
0:01:21 > 0:01:24They were some of the original films shot on location,
0:01:24 > 0:01:27over six hours' worth.
0:01:27 > 0:01:30Not only were they in extremely good condition,
0:01:30 > 0:01:33but they were actually in colour.
0:01:46 > 0:01:50They show animals filmed for the first time,
0:01:50 > 0:01:53as well as being a unique cultural record of a bygone era.
0:02:04 > 0:02:09I was astonished to hear that they had all this colour negative stock.
0:02:09 > 0:02:12I had never seen it. Nobody had ever seen it, I think.
0:02:12 > 0:02:14It had never been printed in colour.
0:02:18 > 0:02:20And it had an extraordinary quality.
0:02:20 > 0:02:23Quite unlike modern colour film
0:02:23 > 0:02:25and certainly unlike modern colour television.
0:02:27 > 0:02:30And now the best of this original colour footage
0:02:30 > 0:02:34can be seen for the first time.
0:02:34 > 0:02:36And with it the story of how
0:02:36 > 0:02:40this pioneering television series was made.
0:02:54 > 0:02:58I was astonished when someone said we've got nearly all the film
0:02:58 > 0:03:00of the first three expeditions you did in colour.
0:03:00 > 0:03:03I said, "It's impossible, we shot in black and white."
0:03:03 > 0:03:07I hadn't seen a foot of that film since it went out.
0:03:07 > 0:03:11And when it went out it was all in black and white.
0:03:11 > 0:03:13And it looked pretty miserable.
0:03:15 > 0:03:19Using the latest technology to remaster the original colour film,
0:03:19 > 0:03:23it can now be seen in high definition as never before.
0:03:31 > 0:03:35I was absolutely staggered at the quality.
0:03:35 > 0:03:39At its best, it's as good as any colour you see now.
0:03:39 > 0:03:44And the big close-ups of animals, the faces and the eyes.
0:03:47 > 0:03:52Quite staggering for the period that it was filmed in. I was astonished.
0:03:56 > 0:04:00And there is a good reason as to why colour film was used.
0:04:00 > 0:04:02It was all due to David's choice
0:04:02 > 0:04:05of using a lightweight hand-held 16mm camera.
0:04:07 > 0:04:12I was insistent that we would have to use 16mm film.
0:04:12 > 0:04:18Now, that was very much smaller than the 35 mil which the BBC use.
0:04:19 > 0:04:24We couldn't take the very big cameras into the bush in Africa.
0:04:24 > 0:04:26And the Head of Films at the BBC
0:04:26 > 0:04:29thought that 16mm was beneath contempt.
0:04:29 > 0:04:34There was a bit of a row, so we had a big meeting and eventually I got
0:04:34 > 0:04:39permission to use 16, which was the first time ever for BBC Television.
0:04:39 > 0:04:41But the film department had their own back.
0:04:41 > 0:04:44They said, "All right. Well, if you use 16,
0:04:44 > 0:04:49"you will have to shoot it on colour negative.
0:04:49 > 0:04:51"Because that will give you much better definition.
0:04:51 > 0:04:55"It won't be as fuzzy as black and white negative would do."
0:04:57 > 0:05:01I had to go and find somebody who would shoot this.
0:05:01 > 0:05:04And I heard that there was an amateur cameraman,
0:05:04 > 0:05:09a young chap who was very good on 16 mil cameras.
0:05:09 > 0:05:12So I discovered his name, which was Charles Lagus.
0:05:14 > 0:05:16I met this young man called Attenborough
0:05:16 > 0:05:20who nobody had ever heard of before.
0:05:20 > 0:05:21And we got chatting.
0:05:21 > 0:05:25I said, "Look, I'm going to West Africa.
0:05:25 > 0:05:28"Would you be at all interested in coming?"
0:05:28 > 0:05:31And he said, "Well, I might."
0:05:31 > 0:05:33We seemed to hit it off straight away.
0:05:33 > 0:05:35We laughed at the same jokes
0:05:35 > 0:05:38and so at the end of it I said, "Would you like to come on holiday?"
0:05:38 > 0:05:41I said, "Well, am I actually doing the job with you?"
0:05:41 > 0:05:43He said, "Well, yes, of course you are!"
0:05:45 > 0:05:49David and I were really nobodies.
0:05:49 > 0:05:53Somebody who was going off with 16 mil film? They were amateurs!
0:05:53 > 0:05:56We were rebels, really.
0:05:56 > 0:05:59And rather sneered at, I think,
0:05:59 > 0:06:01by the Film department, certainly.
0:06:03 > 0:06:06I'd got to know a lovely man called Jack Lester,
0:06:06 > 0:06:09who was in charge of the reptile house at London Zoo.
0:06:12 > 0:06:16Jack was going to be the star. I was the director.
0:06:19 > 0:06:21And so Jack, Charles and I were the team.
0:06:24 > 0:06:28What we were going to do was to film sequences in Africa
0:06:28 > 0:06:32of Jack Lester collecting things.
0:06:32 > 0:06:35He would pounce on a snake, let us say,
0:06:35 > 0:06:39and then we would dissolve from that film sequence to the snake
0:06:39 > 0:06:43in the studio, with Jack struggling with it and explaining it.
0:06:43 > 0:06:45And that was the idea.
0:06:45 > 0:06:47The zoo agreed and the BBC agreed,
0:06:47 > 0:06:50and Jack and I both agreed. Off we went.
0:06:53 > 0:06:56Charles and I set off with Jack and a chap called Alf Woods.
0:06:56 > 0:07:00One of the senior keepers from the birdhouse.
0:07:00 > 0:07:03And when we landed in Sierra Leone, it was the first time
0:07:03 > 0:07:07I'd ever been to the Tropics and I was absolutely knocked out.
0:07:07 > 0:07:10I remember very clearly walking across the grass strip
0:07:10 > 0:07:13and then I saw something moving. It was a chameleon.
0:07:13 > 0:07:17I though, "A chameleon in the hedge here!" And there was a mantis.
0:07:17 > 0:07:22I was suddenly struck by the huge proliferation of life
0:07:22 > 0:07:25which is characteristic of the Tropics.
0:07:28 > 0:07:34That muggy air, that tropical air, not only loaded with moisture
0:07:34 > 0:07:37but loaded with smells from the earth and from the forest.
0:07:40 > 0:07:44'We set off in our lorry along the dusty red earth roads which
0:07:44 > 0:07:48'cut through the thick tropical bush on our way into the interior.'
0:07:51 > 0:07:55'But distances in Sierra Leone are not only measured in miles,
0:07:55 > 0:07:58'they're also measured in rivers.
0:07:58 > 0:08:02'And the slow hand-pulled ferries that cross them.
0:08:02 > 0:08:06'But, to us, the time spent on ferries wasn't wasted.
0:08:06 > 0:08:09'We hoped to take back to London a representative collection
0:08:09 > 0:08:12'of the whole of the animal life of this part of Africa.
0:08:12 > 0:08:15'And the ferrymen, being the biggest gossips in the area,
0:08:15 > 0:08:17'were just the people to tell us
0:08:17 > 0:08:19'if anyone had caught any animals recently.
0:08:19 > 0:08:21'And to pass on the extraordinary news
0:08:21 > 0:08:24'to all travelling along the road that a party of Englishmen
0:08:24 > 0:08:26'were willing to buy animals of all sorts
0:08:26 > 0:08:30'and were offering rewards to anyone who could show them the nests
0:08:30 > 0:08:33'of some extraordinary bald-headed bird.'
0:08:35 > 0:08:38I wanted an objective for our trip.
0:08:38 > 0:08:40I said to Jack Lester, I said,
0:08:40 > 0:08:43"Couldn't we make it a quest for something?"
0:08:43 > 0:08:45He said, "I suppose we could."
0:08:45 > 0:08:47I said, "Well, isn't there something
0:08:47 > 0:08:49"that nobody has ever seen before alive?"
0:08:49 > 0:08:53Jack had a fascination for a bird
0:08:53 > 0:08:56called Picathartes gymnocephalus.
0:08:56 > 0:08:58And I said, "Jack, you see,
0:08:58 > 0:09:02"A Quest For Picathartes Gymnocephalus
0:09:02 > 0:09:04"is not a winning title."
0:09:04 > 0:09:09It was a very boring-looking bald crow.
0:09:09 > 0:09:11"Hasn't it got another name?"
0:09:11 > 0:09:15He said, "Oh, yeah." I said, "Great. What's the English name?"
0:09:15 > 0:09:17He said, "A bald-headed rock crow."
0:09:17 > 0:09:20I said, "Well, even Quest For A Bald-headed Rock Crow
0:09:20 > 0:09:22"is not a crowd-pleaser, particularly.
0:09:22 > 0:09:26"Not one to track them in." So then we just called it Zoo Quest.
0:09:29 > 0:09:32'We came to our first African village,
0:09:32 > 0:09:34'where life continues in the same way
0:09:34 > 0:09:36'as it's done for hundreds of years.'
0:09:41 > 0:09:44'An old man sits patiently weaving his cloth
0:09:44 > 0:09:47'in the ancient traditional way.'
0:09:54 > 0:09:56'Women sit in the shade of the huts,
0:09:56 > 0:09:59'carding and spinning the locally-grown cotton,
0:09:59 > 0:10:02'ready for the weaver.'
0:10:14 > 0:10:20'Cassava and rice has to be pounded to flour in wooden pestles.
0:10:20 > 0:10:25'But here, as everywhere else, there's time for beautification.'
0:10:33 > 0:10:34'Outside the village,
0:10:34 > 0:10:38'as outside every village large or small in West Africa,
0:10:38 > 0:10:41'there was one tree supporting a great chattering colony
0:10:41 > 0:10:42'of weaver birds.'
0:10:42 > 0:10:45BIRDS CHATTER
0:10:45 > 0:10:49Thanks to their convenient location, these weaver birds were in fact the
0:10:49 > 0:10:54first wild animals ever to be filmed for a David Attenborough series.
0:10:55 > 0:10:58'They're very destructive creatures,
0:10:58 > 0:11:01'causing a great deal of damage to crops of grain.
0:11:01 > 0:11:03'But although it would be easy enough to cut down the trees
0:11:03 > 0:11:05'and destroy the nests,
0:11:05 > 0:11:07'the villagers rarely take any action against the birds.
0:11:07 > 0:11:11'For they believe that if you drive away the weaver birds,
0:11:11 > 0:11:13'you will drive away prosperity from the village.
0:11:13 > 0:11:16'And so the birds are left to strip the leaves from their tree,
0:11:16 > 0:11:19'tear them into long ribbons and sew and weave them
0:11:19 > 0:11:22'into their beautiful, intricate nests.'
0:11:26 > 0:11:29'Our first duty on arriving in the village
0:11:29 > 0:11:31'was to pay our respects to the chief.
0:11:31 > 0:11:34'If he gave us his official approval,
0:11:34 > 0:11:38'we could be sure of the help of the best hunters in the district.
0:11:38 > 0:11:41'The chief came out of his compound to meet us,
0:11:41 > 0:11:44'followed in procession by some of his many wives.'
0:11:51 > 0:11:54'Everyone gathered round to see what he wanted.
0:11:54 > 0:11:57'And we were the objects of a great deal of curiosity,
0:11:57 > 0:12:01'not entirely unmixed with fear as far as the children were concerned.'
0:12:07 > 0:12:11'Jack explained that we had come to collect all sorts of animals,
0:12:11 > 0:12:13'and as we didn't know the African names,
0:12:13 > 0:12:17'we carried pictures of the creatures we particularly wanted.
0:12:17 > 0:12:20'This, the emerald starling, the chief recognised,
0:12:20 > 0:12:23'though he would insist on turning it upside down.
0:12:23 > 0:12:26'But picathartes, right way up or upside down,
0:12:26 > 0:12:29'didn't mean anything at all to him.
0:12:29 > 0:12:30'"But did we like snakes?" he said?'
0:12:33 > 0:12:35Jack was great with snakes.
0:12:35 > 0:12:38He would pick up the most poisonous snakes
0:12:38 > 0:12:41that local people were terrified of.
0:12:43 > 0:12:47'A Gaboon viper, just as deadly as the cobras.
0:12:47 > 0:12:50'It was crawling only a few yards away from our hut.
0:12:50 > 0:12:53'It looked sluggish, but it can strike like lightning.'
0:12:56 > 0:13:00And now its beautiful markings can be seen in their full glory.
0:13:00 > 0:13:02They provide perfect camouflage
0:13:02 > 0:13:05when amongst the leaf litter of the forest floor.
0:13:08 > 0:13:09'Our people had found it
0:13:09 > 0:13:11'and, like most of us, they were terrified of it.
0:13:11 > 0:13:14'But when Jack heard of it, he was delighted and came running,
0:13:14 > 0:13:16'anxious to catch such a handsome snake
0:13:16 > 0:13:18'for his reptile house in the zoo.'
0:13:32 > 0:13:35A Gaboon viper is a very formidable thing.
0:13:37 > 0:13:41Jack in fact catches it either at the back of the neck,
0:13:41 > 0:13:45or indeed, rather more dangerously, I think, picking it up by the tail
0:13:45 > 0:13:48and making sure he doesn't get anywhere near where it can bite you.
0:13:50 > 0:13:53And then dropping it in a box or a sack.
0:13:56 > 0:13:58Of course, 60 years ago,
0:13:58 > 0:14:03zoos regularly sent out expeditions to collect live animals.
0:14:04 > 0:14:08Nobody thought much about conservation or really considered
0:14:08 > 0:14:11that animals might be driven to extinction.
0:14:11 > 0:14:15Of course, these days, you would never dream of doing that.
0:14:16 > 0:14:20'People started bringing boxes and cages to us in great numbers.'
0:14:22 > 0:14:25'The contents of this box we wanted very much indeed.
0:14:25 > 0:14:27'For sticking her fingers through the slats
0:14:27 > 0:14:30'and scratching anyone who came near
0:14:30 > 0:14:32'was a very young baby chimpanzee.'
0:14:35 > 0:14:39'Within four days, we had so won her confidence that she would run
0:14:39 > 0:14:41'to take milk from Jack's lap.
0:14:41 > 0:14:44'And from then on, Jane, as we christened her, was
0:14:44 > 0:14:48'the tamest and most affectionate animal in the collection.'
0:14:48 > 0:14:50And it was so rewarding
0:14:50 > 0:14:54because it almost became one of the family with us.
0:14:54 > 0:14:58It would put its arms around us and just hug us.
0:14:58 > 0:15:01'She spent most of her time climbing about in the trees
0:15:01 > 0:15:04'nearest to whichever hut we happened to be staying in.'
0:15:14 > 0:15:17In those days, it was quite common
0:15:17 > 0:15:20for people to have baby chimpanzees as pets.
0:15:24 > 0:15:28Jane was quite young, actually, and I looked after her
0:15:28 > 0:15:32and I became very fond of her. She was a sweet creature.
0:15:34 > 0:15:37And Jane became a firm favourite with viewers at home.
0:15:40 > 0:15:45Again, something you would not possibly be allowed to do these days
0:15:45 > 0:15:46and again, quite right.
0:15:47 > 0:15:51'Jane the chimpanzee was always curious,
0:15:51 > 0:15:53'as to see what was going on.
0:15:53 > 0:15:54'And insisted on inspecting
0:15:54 > 0:15:58'each new addition to the collection as it arrived.
0:15:58 > 0:15:59'Like this little antelope.'
0:16:09 > 0:16:12'This young mongoose didn't appreciate her attentions at all
0:16:12 > 0:16:13'and give her a sharp nip.'
0:16:16 > 0:16:18As we built up a collection,
0:16:18 > 0:16:22somebody would have to look after all these newly-captured animals.
0:16:22 > 0:16:26'At our base, Alf Woods, who came out from the zoo's birdhouse,
0:16:26 > 0:16:29'was looking after our rapidly-growing collection.
0:16:29 > 0:16:32'This small section contains our sunbirds.
0:16:32 > 0:16:35'They live by sipping nectar from flowers.
0:16:35 > 0:16:37'But in captivity they will feed and flourish
0:16:37 > 0:16:39'on a mixture of honey and water,
0:16:39 > 0:16:41'which they sip from these little jars.'
0:16:44 > 0:16:46'When a new one is first brought in,
0:16:46 > 0:16:49'it has to be shown that the jars contain something worth eating.
0:16:49 > 0:16:52'So Alf always held it in his hand, dipped its beak into the honey
0:16:52 > 0:16:54'and he drinks.
0:16:54 > 0:16:57'His threadlike tongue flashing in and out at an enormous rate.'
0:16:59 > 0:17:03The way things got looked after, it was amazing.
0:17:03 > 0:17:07And I don't think we ever lost an animal.
0:17:10 > 0:17:14'In this tin, we had two little African bush rats,
0:17:14 > 0:17:16'which were even younger.
0:17:16 > 0:17:19'They were so small that they couldn't tackle solid foods,
0:17:19 > 0:17:22'so we fed them with milk from a pen filler.'
0:17:30 > 0:17:34David and Jack, and in the early days Alfie Woods,
0:17:34 > 0:17:38knew exactly how to look after everything that we caught
0:17:38 > 0:17:40and they were just amazing with them.
0:17:43 > 0:17:46'A great difficulty with all these youngsters is to keep them warm.
0:17:46 > 0:17:49'And at first we always put little bottles of hot water
0:17:49 > 0:17:51'inside their tins overnight.
0:17:51 > 0:17:53'This young ground squirrel,
0:17:53 > 0:17:55'though very weak when he first arrived,
0:17:55 > 0:17:59'did well under this treatment and ate vast quantities of palm nuts.'
0:18:11 > 0:18:14'Young birds always had to be fed by hand.'
0:18:16 > 0:18:19'This young owl demanded food every three hours.'
0:18:29 > 0:18:32But when the team went out to film animals in the wild,
0:18:32 > 0:18:33there was a problem.
0:18:35 > 0:18:38In West Africa in the forest, it's really very dark.
0:18:38 > 0:18:42And I remember Charles going in, the first time he went in,
0:18:42 > 0:18:44he said, "We can't film here at all."
0:18:44 > 0:18:48I said, "What do you mean, not at all?" There was a bit of a blow.
0:18:48 > 0:18:50He said, "There is not enough light.
0:18:50 > 0:18:52I said, "Even for black and white negative?"
0:18:52 > 0:18:55He said, "No, it's just too dark.
0:18:55 > 0:18:59"The only way we can film here to get a decent picture
0:18:59 > 0:19:01"is to cut down a tree."
0:19:01 > 0:19:04And so that was a bit of a facer, really.
0:19:04 > 0:19:07But when I did realise, I thought we'd have to think of something
0:19:07 > 0:19:12else, so what we decided to do was we would film birds that were
0:19:12 > 0:19:17out in the open, or we would go into clearings in the forest.
0:19:17 > 0:19:20Now, there aren't big animals sitting in the clearings,
0:19:20 > 0:19:21but there are small animals.
0:19:22 > 0:19:26'We were interested in little animals, as well as big ones.
0:19:26 > 0:19:30'And one of the commonest insects in Africa is the termite.
0:19:30 > 0:19:32'There's more than one sort of individual termite.
0:19:32 > 0:19:35'The most common are the small workers.
0:19:35 > 0:19:39'But among them are the soldiers, with enormously enlarged heads,
0:19:39 > 0:19:40'armed with great jaws
0:19:40 > 0:19:43'with which they can give the most painful bite.'
0:19:45 > 0:19:48'Naturally, when the nest is disturbed,
0:19:48 > 0:19:50'the soldiers are very much on the warpath.
0:19:50 > 0:19:53'And so cutting a section of their nest
0:19:53 > 0:19:55'can become quite a painful business.'
0:19:59 > 0:20:04Close-up photography of things like insects was almost unknown.
0:20:04 > 0:20:07Nobody had done this before.
0:20:08 > 0:20:11Charles was really very inventive.
0:20:11 > 0:20:14He took an ordinary hollow piece of metal and screwed it on the end
0:20:14 > 0:20:19of a lens and so increased the magnification, as it were.
0:20:19 > 0:20:22And he was very, very ingenious at doing that.
0:20:22 > 0:20:27When you get a close-up of a praying Mantis,
0:20:27 > 0:20:29they are fascinating in themselves.
0:20:29 > 0:20:31It's like magic.
0:20:39 > 0:20:43They were very impressive shots.
0:20:43 > 0:20:46We noticed that there was a wasp on the veranda.
0:20:46 > 0:20:50And before I could make it out, Charles was up there and filming it.
0:20:50 > 0:20:53There was a male wasp hanging on the side of the nest, waiting to
0:20:53 > 0:20:57grab the female before some other male grabbed her and fertilised her.
0:20:58 > 0:21:01'Once more, another male arrives.'
0:21:08 > 0:21:09'Things are now getting tense.
0:21:09 > 0:21:11'The young female continues her struggles
0:21:11 > 0:21:15'and hauls herself to the mouth of the cell.
0:21:15 > 0:21:19'And now she's free, he seizes her and flies off.'
0:21:19 > 0:21:22It wasn't what I thought we'd come to film, if you see what I mean.
0:21:22 > 0:21:24But we made a speciality.
0:21:24 > 0:21:27That's what we could do, and so we did it.
0:21:33 > 0:21:37But the team still hadn't found the subject of their quest.
0:21:37 > 0:21:39The elusive picathartes.
0:21:41 > 0:21:44'After an hour of cutting a path through the bush up the hill,
0:21:44 > 0:21:48'we at last began to get good views of the surrounding countryside.'
0:21:49 > 0:21:52'No-one in the first village we stayed in
0:21:52 > 0:21:55'had recognised our picture of picathartes.
0:21:55 > 0:22:00'And we decided to move on through the bush towards the interior.'
0:22:05 > 0:22:08'At last, we reached the next village.'
0:22:09 > 0:22:12Very often when we would come to a village,
0:22:12 > 0:22:16it was quite a ceremonial event for the people.
0:22:16 > 0:22:19HORN SOUNDS
0:22:29 > 0:22:33And they would welcome us, they would play music,
0:22:33 > 0:22:39and usually quite sophisticated, complicated music to our ears.
0:22:40 > 0:22:43I don't think they'd seen film cameras there before
0:22:43 > 0:22:46and they certainly had never heard themselves recorded.
0:22:47 > 0:22:52There was no way of linking sound recording to film in those days,
0:22:52 > 0:22:54on 16mm at any rate.
0:22:54 > 0:23:01And David used to do the sound. Not that he had been in any way trained.
0:23:01 > 0:23:05It was quarter-inch tape, reel to reel, battery driven.
0:23:05 > 0:23:07David took to it like duck to water.
0:23:09 > 0:23:12I'd be very careful in the editing later.
0:23:12 > 0:23:16It isn't all that noticeable that we haven't got sync sound.
0:23:19 > 0:23:22A portable tape machine was quite a new thing.
0:23:22 > 0:23:25No-one had seen it in the parts of Sierra Leone where we were.
0:23:25 > 0:23:28So they had no idea what we were doing.
0:23:29 > 0:23:32'First to perform for us were the newly initiated girls
0:23:32 > 0:23:36'who had just passed through the rites of the Bundu secret society.'
0:23:52 > 0:23:56'And here, joining the girls in the dance is the Bundu Devil,
0:23:56 > 0:24:00'who presides over the initiation ceremonies in the sacred bush.'
0:24:23 > 0:24:24'A change of music.
0:24:24 > 0:24:28'These drums we knew were used in the dance of the njai society,
0:24:28 > 0:24:31'which we had been told we were not allowed to see.'
0:24:39 > 0:24:43'As they sounded, the devil itself came into the dance.
0:24:43 > 0:24:45'A very fearsome magical devil
0:24:45 > 0:24:48'that has the gift of foretelling the future.'
0:25:20 > 0:25:23'But we were able to produce some magic of our own.
0:25:23 > 0:25:25'For while the dance had been going on,
0:25:25 > 0:25:29'I had been recording the music on my tape recorder.
0:25:29 > 0:25:32'This, of course, was the object of a great deal of curiosity.
0:25:32 > 0:25:34'I always play the recording back
0:25:34 > 0:25:37'and let the singers listen to themselves on a little earphone.
0:25:37 > 0:25:42'Blank astonishment was always followed by huge grins of delight.'
0:25:42 > 0:25:43We tried to explain what we were doing,
0:25:43 > 0:25:45but they couldn't understand it.
0:25:45 > 0:25:49What we could do was to turn a switch and then use the microphone,
0:25:49 > 0:25:53which was a big thing like that, and use it as a speaker.
0:25:53 > 0:25:56And so we recorded something with the women
0:25:56 > 0:25:59and then I played it to them through the ear.
0:25:59 > 0:26:02And they started off by being sort of astounded
0:26:02 > 0:26:04and then suddenly delighted.
0:26:04 > 0:26:06They thought it was absolutely thrilling.
0:26:06 > 0:26:09SINGING PLAYS
0:26:09 > 0:26:11SPEECH INAUDIBLE
0:26:23 > 0:26:26'Meanwhile, Jack was talking to other members of the village
0:26:26 > 0:26:32'and showing our picture of picathartes to everybody he met.
0:26:32 > 0:26:36'This man was the local agricultural instructor living in the village,
0:26:36 > 0:26:40'and to our delight, he at last recognised the picture.
0:26:40 > 0:26:42'The birds he said were not common,
0:26:42 > 0:26:45'but he had seen them in the thicker parts of the bush,
0:26:45 > 0:26:48'up in the hills at the back of the village.
0:26:48 > 0:26:51'So it was that the next day, under his guidance,
0:26:51 > 0:26:54'we started off on the journey up the hill,
0:26:54 > 0:26:58'on our way at last to the nests of picathartes.'
0:27:00 > 0:27:03The problem with the picathartes nesting site
0:27:03 > 0:27:06was that it was in deep jungle and it was very, very dark.
0:27:06 > 0:27:10And there was simply not enough light for the colour negative stock
0:27:10 > 0:27:14that we were using, so we had to use black and white.
0:27:18 > 0:27:22'We took our places behind the hide and now came the most tense moment
0:27:22 > 0:27:26'of the expedition, the moment for which we had all waited so long.
0:27:26 > 0:27:28'Would we see the adult birds?'
0:27:28 > 0:27:29It was a six-part series.
0:27:29 > 0:27:32We ended each programme by saying,
0:27:32 > 0:27:36"But will we find Picathartes gymnocephalus?
0:27:36 > 0:27:39"Tune in next week!"
0:27:39 > 0:27:43And I was a bit worried about whether this would actually
0:27:43 > 0:27:45make any impression on anybody.
0:27:45 > 0:27:48And actually Charles Lagus and I
0:27:48 > 0:27:53were in Charles' open two-seater sports car and we were
0:27:53 > 0:27:56driving along Oxford Street, which you could do in those days.
0:27:56 > 0:28:01And a driver leant out and he said, "Hello, Dave!
0:28:01 > 0:28:07"Well, are we or are we not going to catch Pica bloody thartes?"
0:28:07 > 0:28:09So I thought,
0:28:09 > 0:28:12"Well, maybe the programmes are beginning to catch on."
0:28:12 > 0:28:14'Suddenly, we saw one
0:28:14 > 0:28:17'a few yards away in the twilight of the bush, preening itself.
0:28:17 > 0:28:19'This was enormous excitement.
0:28:19 > 0:28:21'Then up it fluttered onto the nest.
0:28:21 > 0:28:24'And as it did so, the other parent flew across
0:28:24 > 0:28:27'and drove the first one away. This was a great thrill for us.
0:28:27 > 0:28:32'For as this happened, we became the first Europeans ever to see
0:28:32 > 0:28:34'the white-necked picathartes on its nest.'
0:28:35 > 0:28:39It did take several weeks before we actually found it.
0:28:39 > 0:28:42In a childish way, to film something that nobody had ever
0:28:42 > 0:28:46filmed alive before tickled our fancy.
0:28:46 > 0:28:48We thought it was fun.
0:28:50 > 0:28:54'And eventually we secured a young fledgling.
0:28:54 > 0:28:56'Alf Woods offered it a little frog.
0:28:56 > 0:28:58'To our delight and relief,
0:28:58 > 0:29:00'it accepted it greedily and asked for more.'
0:29:00 > 0:29:02Feeding it alone was a chore.
0:29:02 > 0:29:07It ate something like 60 little froglets every three hours.
0:29:07 > 0:29:09So not only were we filming,
0:29:09 > 0:29:13but we were spending our time catching frogs.
0:29:13 > 0:29:15'On that food, it grew and flourished
0:29:15 > 0:29:17'and made the long voyage back to England.
0:29:17 > 0:29:20'Now it's settled and thriving in the London Zoo.
0:29:20 > 0:29:23'The first white-necked Picathartes
0:29:23 > 0:29:26'ever to be brought out of Africa alive.'
0:29:28 > 0:29:31The first Zoo Quest programme went out with Jack Lester
0:29:31 > 0:29:34showing the animals, and I up in the gallery
0:29:34 > 0:29:39directing the television cameras, which is what my job was.
0:29:39 > 0:29:44But after that first appearance, Jack became very ill
0:29:44 > 0:29:46with a tropical disease.
0:29:46 > 0:29:49He was taken to hospital just after the first programme.
0:29:49 > 0:29:52And so the Head of Television said,
0:29:52 > 0:29:54"Attenborough, you thought you were director,
0:29:54 > 0:29:57"but somebody's got to do the studio."
0:29:57 > 0:29:59Nobody else was there, you do it.
0:29:59 > 0:30:03And it turned out that he was absolutely brilliant at it.
0:30:03 > 0:30:08In fact, he was much better at it than Jack. He was just a natural.
0:30:10 > 0:30:14That is the picture of a very rare bird, the white-necked picathartes.
0:30:15 > 0:30:19And he could, particularly in the earlier ones, he would laugh
0:30:19 > 0:30:24at himself because he knew he was sort of acting for the camera.
0:30:24 > 0:30:26One of those Indians taught me how to make the noise.
0:30:26 > 0:30:29At least I think I can do it. He goes...
0:30:29 > 0:30:31HE IMITATES BIRD Is that any good, do you think?
0:30:31 > 0:30:33Ask him!
0:30:33 > 0:30:35And that's how he became the narrator.
0:30:35 > 0:30:41And became one of the great natural television broadcasters.
0:30:41 > 0:30:44And here he is, the very same one.
0:30:44 > 0:30:47The tree anteater or tamandua.
0:30:47 > 0:30:51- That right, isn't it?- Well, tamandu-a, we call it.- Very well.
0:30:51 > 0:30:55All television was live, and if you didn't get it right first time,
0:30:55 > 0:30:58it was just tough.
0:30:58 > 0:31:01Everybody saw you making a mistake.
0:31:01 > 0:31:05And from the last... for the last time, from Dr Matthews, Jack Lester,
0:31:05 > 0:31:08Charles Lagus and myself, goodnight.
0:31:08 > 0:31:10Zoo Quest was a success.
0:31:10 > 0:31:15And I thought, "Right, in that case, strike while the iron's hot,"
0:31:15 > 0:31:17and I immediately suggested
0:31:17 > 0:31:20that we should go to somewhere in South America.
0:31:20 > 0:31:23And the obvious place to go was British Guiana, as it then was,
0:31:23 > 0:31:25and is now Guyana.
0:31:25 > 0:31:31And Jack had recovered and so we set off on our second trip.
0:31:31 > 0:31:36This was in 1955, soon after the first series was broadcast.
0:31:37 > 0:31:41There were still areas there where it was pristine, really.
0:31:41 > 0:31:43Relatively speaking.
0:31:43 > 0:31:47That is the South American jungle as I first saw it.
0:31:47 > 0:31:50We were flying over British Guiana.
0:31:50 > 0:31:54That forest below us stretched unbroken for several hundred miles
0:31:54 > 0:31:56up north to the River Orinoco,
0:31:56 > 0:31:59right down south to the Amazon and the Mato Grosso.
0:31:59 > 0:32:02In fact, it's one of the largest unexplored,
0:32:02 > 0:32:06and as far as I'm concerned, exciting areas in the world.
0:32:12 > 0:32:14'There are three of us in that plane.
0:32:14 > 0:32:18'Jack Lester from the London Zoo, Charles Lagus the cameraman
0:32:18 > 0:32:19'and myself.'
0:32:25 > 0:32:29'As we came in, we saw for the first time some of the Akawaio Indians
0:32:29 > 0:32:32'with whom we would be living for the next months.
0:32:32 > 0:32:35'Though these particular people were partly Europeanised, as they lived
0:32:35 > 0:32:39'and worked on the government station.
0:32:39 > 0:32:43'Our first job was to unload all our stores from the plane.
0:32:43 > 0:32:48'Lenses, cameras, film, recording gear, cooking pots and pans,
0:32:48 > 0:32:50'food, hammocks and all the other things
0:32:50 > 0:32:53'we needed to make us entirely self-sufficient.
0:32:53 > 0:32:55'For when the plane left,
0:32:55 > 0:32:58'we should lose our last link with the outside world.
0:32:58 > 0:33:01'If we had forgotten to bring something,
0:33:01 > 0:33:04'well, from now on we should have to do without it.'
0:33:06 > 0:33:09'Our plan was to travel up the Mazaruni River
0:33:09 > 0:33:11'and explore its tributaries.
0:33:11 > 0:33:15'And for transport the district officer very kindly lent us
0:33:15 > 0:33:19'his largest dugout canoe. And we set off up the river.
0:33:19 > 0:33:22'A tunnel of sunshine, cutting through the jungle.'
0:33:26 > 0:33:28'For us, it was all very exciting
0:33:28 > 0:33:33'because at last we were seeing the South American jungle close at hand.
0:33:33 > 0:33:35'We couldn't expect to see any animals,
0:33:35 > 0:33:38'for the noise of our engine would have driven them far away.
0:33:38 > 0:33:42'But we were happy enough simply to sit there and enjoy the ride.'
0:33:46 > 0:33:50'Late in the afternoon, we heard a distant thundering noise
0:33:50 > 0:33:54'and we knew that we were approaching a waterfall.
0:33:54 > 0:33:56'After another hour, we reached it.'
0:33:58 > 0:34:01'To go further would mean unloading all the canoes
0:34:01 > 0:34:04'and carrying everything above the fall.
0:34:04 > 0:34:06'So we decided to camp that night on the banks.
0:34:06 > 0:34:09'While the boys unloaded the canoe,
0:34:09 > 0:34:11'Jack Lester and I enjoyed ourselves.'
0:34:16 > 0:34:19Filming in Guyana had its problems.
0:34:19 > 0:34:25For me, humidity and rain was the big challenge on the equipment.
0:34:25 > 0:34:29How was I going to store all this stuff without getting wet,
0:34:29 > 0:34:33without having mildew and fungus growing on everything?
0:34:33 > 0:34:34It was a challenge.
0:34:34 > 0:34:40So we had biscuit tins with silica gel, which absorbs moisture.
0:34:40 > 0:34:44So every time we shot something, we put it in the biscuit tin
0:34:44 > 0:34:48and then when the tin was full we sealed it with camera tape
0:34:48 > 0:34:50and there it was with silica gel.
0:34:50 > 0:34:53You've only got to get a scratch on a film, something wrong
0:34:53 > 0:34:59with the exposures, a hair in the gate and you've wrecked everything.
0:34:59 > 0:35:01We could be away for three or four months,
0:35:01 > 0:35:07thinking that we'd got a film and the rushes come back ruined.
0:35:07 > 0:35:11And this really was a nerve-racking thing to live with.
0:35:13 > 0:35:17Despite the tricky conditions, the team soldiered on.
0:35:18 > 0:35:21'The first village we entered seemed deserted.'
0:35:25 > 0:35:29'Then we noticed two tame parrots on the eaves of one of the huts.
0:35:29 > 0:35:33'Whatever else these people were, they were obviously pet-keepers
0:35:33 > 0:35:37'and of course nothing could've been better from our point of view.'
0:35:38 > 0:35:41'Soon, the women emerged from the huts
0:35:41 > 0:35:44'and looked at us silently and impassively.
0:35:44 > 0:35:47'But there were no men for, as we later discovered,
0:35:47 > 0:35:50'they were all out in the forest on a hunting expedition.
0:35:50 > 0:35:54'In their absence, the women were busy with the household chores.
0:35:54 > 0:35:57'This young girl is weaving a bead apron, or mo'sa,
0:35:57 > 0:36:01'which traditionally is the only clothing that the women wear.'
0:36:03 > 0:36:06'Two other girls were busy cutting cassava.'
0:36:08 > 0:36:11'Cassava is the plant from whose swollen starchy roots
0:36:11 > 0:36:14'the Indians make their bread.
0:36:14 > 0:36:18'As a food, though, it seems to me to have serious limitations.
0:36:18 > 0:36:21'Because its juice contains a deadly poison.
0:36:21 > 0:36:23'Prussic acid, in fact.
0:36:23 > 0:36:26'So that before you eat it you must prepare it very carefully
0:36:26 > 0:36:28'to get rid of the poison.'
0:36:32 > 0:36:34'First, it is peeled.
0:36:34 > 0:36:37'And then the peeled roots are grated on a board
0:36:37 > 0:36:40'studded with small pieces of sharp stone.'
0:36:55 > 0:36:58'But you've still not got rid of the poisonous juice,
0:36:58 > 0:37:02'and to extract that, the Indians employ an extendable squeezer
0:37:02 > 0:37:05'that is a most cunning piece of basket work.
0:37:07 > 0:37:09'As you fill it,
0:37:09 > 0:37:12'the weight of the grated cassava makes it becomes short and fat.'
0:37:21 > 0:37:23'When it's quite full,
0:37:23 > 0:37:27'it's carried and hung on the end of one of the rafters of a hut.'
0:37:36 > 0:37:39'A pole is stuck through the loop at the bottom.'
0:37:48 > 0:37:50'And then all you have to do is to sit on it.
0:37:50 > 0:37:52'Your weight makes the squeezer stretch,
0:37:52 > 0:37:57'so that instead of being short and fat, it becomes long and thin.
0:37:57 > 0:38:01'And the juice, with its prussic acid, falls out at the bottom.
0:38:01 > 0:38:03'Sometimes the Indians collect this juice
0:38:03 > 0:38:07'and use it in making poison for their blowpipe darts.'
0:38:08 > 0:38:10'When the cassava is squeezed
0:38:10 > 0:38:14'and the Indians are satisfied that there's no more poisonous juice
0:38:14 > 0:38:18'in it, it is emptied in dry pulpy lumps into a wicker basket.'
0:38:23 > 0:38:27'Then it's broken up and sifted into a sort of coarse flour.'
0:38:34 > 0:38:38'The actual cooking of the bread was, to me, fascinating
0:38:38 > 0:38:41'because it's done in exactly the same way as griddle cakes
0:38:41 > 0:38:44'and oatcakes are made in Scotland and Wales.
0:38:44 > 0:38:50'It's cooked, in fact, on a circular bakestone heated over a fire.
0:38:50 > 0:38:53'But as in Wales and Scotland, so in the upper Mazaruni River,
0:38:53 > 0:38:56'housewives have a little bad luck in turning the cakes.'
0:39:01 > 0:39:03'When the fat white circle of cassava bread
0:39:03 > 0:39:07'is cooked on both sides, it's put out on racks to dry in the sun.'
0:39:09 > 0:39:12'Having seen the whole of the cooking process,
0:39:12 > 0:39:15'I thought I really ought to see what the bread tasted like.'
0:39:17 > 0:39:21'Courtesy made me pretend that I enjoyed it, but I can't say I'd like
0:39:21 > 0:39:23'to spend the rest of my life
0:39:23 > 0:39:26'living on cassava bread, as the Indians do.'
0:39:29 > 0:39:31As the Zoo Quest series continued,
0:39:31 > 0:39:34it revealed as much about the local people as the animals.
0:39:36 > 0:39:37'The children of the village
0:39:37 > 0:39:40'had much better things to do than to cook.'
0:39:41 > 0:39:43'Fishing is much more fun.'
0:39:47 > 0:39:50'These two lads, Carlton and Codrice,
0:39:50 > 0:39:52'became great friends of ours.'
0:39:57 > 0:40:01Of course, they knew the jungle absolutely backwards.
0:40:01 > 0:40:05They took us into the rainforest and made us feel ashamed
0:40:05 > 0:40:08at how little we knew and how much they knew.
0:40:08 > 0:40:12'There were two other pets in the village, and rather odd ones.
0:40:12 > 0:40:14'Capybara.
0:40:14 > 0:40:17'They are not related to pigs as you might think,
0:40:17 > 0:40:20'but belong to the family that includes rats and mice.
0:40:20 > 0:40:22'The rodent family.
0:40:22 > 0:40:25'They are, in fact, the largest rodents in the world.
0:40:25 > 0:40:28'And, when fully grown, they can be three feet long.'
0:40:33 > 0:40:35'These two were comparatively young ones.
0:40:35 > 0:40:37'They had been reared from tiny babies
0:40:37 > 0:40:42'by the grandmother of our two friends, Carlton and Codrice.
0:40:42 > 0:40:45'They had never quite forgotten their childish habit of suckling
0:40:45 > 0:40:49'and were prepared to suck anything that was offered to them,
0:40:49 > 0:40:52'including my finger.'
0:40:57 > 0:41:00'Nevertheless, they were fully equipped with
0:41:00 > 0:41:03'the long front incisor teeth of the rodent family.'
0:41:05 > 0:41:08And they ate bushels and bushels of grass.'
0:41:09 > 0:41:12They were very much village pets, actually.
0:41:12 > 0:41:17And although people ate capybaras, in order that nobody else would kill
0:41:17 > 0:41:21these village pets which had been reared since they were very young,
0:41:21 > 0:41:24they put red patches of paint on them so that they were identifiable.
0:41:25 > 0:41:27'The oddest thing about them
0:41:27 > 0:41:31'is that they are really amphibious animals and in the wild
0:41:31 > 0:41:35'they spend a great deal of their time swimming in the rivers.
0:41:35 > 0:41:38'There are two clues to this habit of theirs.
0:41:38 > 0:41:39'The first is that
0:41:39 > 0:41:42'their eyes and nostrils are placed very high on the head,
0:41:42 > 0:41:45'so that like the crocodile and the hippopotamus, they can lie submerged
0:41:45 > 0:41:49'in the river with just their eyes and nostrils out of water.
0:41:49 > 0:41:52'And the second is that their feet are webbed.
0:41:52 > 0:41:54'We were very anxious to film them swimming.
0:41:54 > 0:41:56'And for a long time,
0:41:56 > 0:42:00'I tried to persuade them to go down into the river. But they wouldn't.'
0:42:01 > 0:42:06And Jack's big thing was these are supposed to be aquatic animals.
0:42:06 > 0:42:08"Why don't they ever go in the water?
0:42:08 > 0:42:10"I want to see film of them in the water."
0:42:10 > 0:42:12So I wanted to show this,
0:42:12 > 0:42:15but the wretched things wouldn't go into the river.
0:42:15 > 0:42:17'And then early one morning,
0:42:17 > 0:42:20'Carlton and Codrice ran down to the river for a swim.'
0:42:22 > 0:42:24They just jumped into the river.
0:42:24 > 0:42:27Of course these capybara, which were semi-tame, followed them
0:42:27 > 0:42:29and jumped in the river too.
0:42:29 > 0:42:33And we got lovely film of the boys playing with the capybaras
0:42:33 > 0:42:35in the river.
0:42:35 > 0:42:38'And we discovered that not only were the two boys
0:42:38 > 0:42:41and their grandmother's capybara habitual playmates,
0:42:41 > 0:42:43'but that the pets would, in fact,
0:42:43 > 0:42:46'never go into the water without the boys.'
0:42:57 > 0:43:00'I certainly wouldn't like to have said which of them
0:43:00 > 0:43:02'were the better swimmers.'
0:43:02 > 0:43:05BOYS GIGGLE
0:43:14 > 0:43:17And it wasn't only Carlton and Codrice
0:43:17 > 0:43:19who enjoyed swimming in the river.
0:43:38 > 0:43:41After their swim, there was another skill the boys wanted to show off.
0:43:43 > 0:43:47'And our two friends, Carlton and Codrice, give us a short exhibition
0:43:47 > 0:43:51'of blowpipe practice, using a small pineapple as a target.'
0:44:09 > 0:44:15Both the little boys loaded these blowpipes...
0:44:15 > 0:44:18and you look along the top.
0:44:18 > 0:44:19And they went...
0:44:19 > 0:44:24And sometimes they missed, but mostly they were pretty accurate.
0:44:27 > 0:44:29INAUDIBLE
0:44:31 > 0:44:34After spending several weeks in the Mazaruni basin,
0:44:34 > 0:44:39the team continued their search throughout Guyana for animals
0:44:39 > 0:44:41that had never been filmed before.
0:45:21 > 0:45:24'Besides egrets, there were also other birds. Blue herons.'
0:45:26 > 0:45:29'And here on the top of a tree a snail-eating hawk,
0:45:29 > 0:45:34'living up to its name by actually eating a snail as we watched.'
0:45:36 > 0:45:40One of the most interesting things as far as I was concerned
0:45:40 > 0:45:42was a bird called a hoatzin,
0:45:42 > 0:45:44which lived in the coastal swamps.
0:45:46 > 0:45:50It had claws on the front of its wings.
0:45:50 > 0:45:54And birds as a whole are thought to have been derived
0:45:54 > 0:45:58from four-legged creatures, perhaps a branch of the dinosaur group.
0:46:00 > 0:46:05So, in a way, that gave you an insight into what the early birds
0:46:05 > 0:46:09with claws on their front legs, their wings,
0:46:09 > 0:46:12were like as they climbed around in the trees.
0:46:15 > 0:46:19It was the first film of hoatzin ever taken, as far as I know.
0:46:24 > 0:46:27The next destination for David and the team was the savanna
0:46:27 > 0:46:33of South Guyana, but the journey was not entirely plain sailing.
0:46:33 > 0:46:36Some of the transport, when we were lucky,
0:46:36 > 0:46:42was a little seaplane driven by a wonderful pilot.
0:46:42 > 0:46:47He must have been ex-air force or something like that,
0:46:47 > 0:46:49because he was just brilliant.
0:46:49 > 0:46:55And we had to take off on a fairly short-ish stretch of river
0:46:55 > 0:47:00which finished in very tall jungly trees.
0:47:00 > 0:47:03In it we had Jack Lester, me, David
0:47:03 > 0:47:06and a mass of equipment.
0:47:06 > 0:47:09It looked awfully overloaded to me.
0:47:09 > 0:47:12And Colonel Williams said, "Don't worry, lads."
0:47:12 > 0:47:15He said, "I've done this before."
0:47:15 > 0:47:18And the engines started.
0:47:18 > 0:47:21He put absolutely full boost on.
0:47:21 > 0:47:26And we roared down this stretch of river. And we got faster and faster.
0:47:34 > 0:47:37And suddenly I could see the trees coming closer and closer
0:47:37 > 0:47:40and closer and closer. He was going straight...
0:47:40 > 0:47:42I was convinced we were going to go straight into them.
0:47:42 > 0:47:44When suddenly when they were just very close,
0:47:44 > 0:47:49he suddenly put his arm around the controls and leant back like this.
0:47:49 > 0:47:51The plane went up into the sky.
0:47:51 > 0:47:55While he was doing that, he started fumbling. I said, "Are you OK?"
0:47:55 > 0:47:58He said, "Yeah, I need my bifocals."
0:47:58 > 0:47:59He changed his glasses.
0:47:59 > 0:48:01And we just made it.
0:48:20 > 0:48:23After what was certainly an interesting flight,
0:48:23 > 0:48:26they finally arrived at their destination.
0:48:26 > 0:48:30The wide Savanna in the south-west. The Rupununi.
0:48:33 > 0:48:35Here they met up with ranch owner Teddy Melville.
0:48:38 > 0:48:40'He took us up to a remote part of his ranch,
0:48:40 > 0:48:44'where he said he had heard reports of a large anaconda snake.'
0:48:49 > 0:48:52'The savannas were littered with giant termite hills,
0:48:52 > 0:48:54'standing like tombstones.'
0:48:57 > 0:48:59'Teddy took us down to a thicket in a swamp
0:48:59 > 0:49:02'where the snake was supposed to lurk.
0:49:02 > 0:49:05'But instead of finding signs of an anaconda, Teddy's sharp eye
0:49:05 > 0:49:09'immediately picked out the footprints of a giant anteater.'
0:49:09 > 0:49:12The big thing was whether we could get a giant anteater.
0:49:12 > 0:49:14So we had a go at it.
0:49:14 > 0:49:18In a rather extraordinary way.
0:49:18 > 0:49:20Amateur ham-fisted way.
0:49:20 > 0:49:22'While we were looking at them,
0:49:22 > 0:49:25'there was a rustle on the other side of the thicket. We looked up.'
0:49:27 > 0:49:30'And there was the anteater itself galloping across the savannas.
0:49:30 > 0:49:33'Without thinking how we were actually going to catch it,
0:49:33 > 0:49:35'Jack and I set off wildly in pursuit.'
0:49:40 > 0:49:44And I ran after it. What I was going to do, I can't imagine.
0:49:44 > 0:49:48But I actually tried to slow it down by catching its tail.
0:49:48 > 0:49:50But when it turned round and had a look at me,
0:49:50 > 0:49:53I decided that was as far as I was going to take this.
0:49:58 > 0:50:02Giant anteaters have these huge powerful forelegs
0:50:02 > 0:50:07with enormous great claws on them, which they rip open termite hills.
0:50:07 > 0:50:11And the one thing to avoid was the embrace of the giant anteater
0:50:11 > 0:50:12because it was lethal.
0:50:23 > 0:50:27The local rancher who was helping us lassoed it, poor old thing.
0:50:33 > 0:50:38And we captured it. Jack had got it for the zoo.
0:50:38 > 0:50:42And it did very well. Lived for quite a long time.
0:50:47 > 0:50:49With all the animals collected,
0:50:49 > 0:50:52the expedition in South America had come to an end.
0:50:53 > 0:50:57But sadly, Jack Lester took a turn for the worse.
0:51:01 > 0:51:03Jack suddenly collapsed again.
0:51:03 > 0:51:07And he had to be flown home urgently.
0:51:07 > 0:51:11And the expedition then came to an end.
0:51:11 > 0:51:14It turned out that they didn't know what it was.
0:51:14 > 0:51:18I'm very sorry to say that Jack has been very ill.
0:51:18 > 0:51:23It started halfway to the expedition and he's still in hospital.
0:51:23 > 0:51:25I think he's probably looking in
0:51:25 > 0:51:27and we all wish him a very speedy recovery.
0:51:27 > 0:51:30When we came back, he was in hospital.
0:51:30 > 0:51:34So there was no question of him taking part.
0:51:34 > 0:51:38And in fact, he never really recovered.
0:51:38 > 0:51:40And he died a few months later.
0:51:49 > 0:51:54The Guyana series was another big hit with the British public.
0:51:54 > 0:51:56Keen to keep Zoo Quest as a regular event,
0:51:56 > 0:52:00it was time for David to choose the next destination.
0:52:06 > 0:52:08We'd done Africa, we'd done South America,
0:52:08 > 0:52:11and the Far East would be the obvious place.
0:52:11 > 0:52:16And I had read about giant lizards which the press had called
0:52:16 > 0:52:19dragons, which lived on a very small island in the middle
0:52:19 > 0:52:23of the Indonesian archipelago, in a place called Komodo.
0:52:24 > 0:52:27Well, having found it on the map, we then had to try and get there.
0:52:27 > 0:52:31But nobody in London could give us any idea as to how we could do so.
0:52:31 > 0:52:35So Charles and I decided the thing to do would be to fly to Singapore
0:52:35 > 0:52:39and then somehow, in some way or another, make our way
0:52:39 > 0:52:43slowly southwards and eastwards through these islands to Komodo.
0:52:43 > 0:52:46And the first place we decided to go to was the mouth
0:52:46 > 0:52:50of the Mahakam River, which goes right into the heart of Borneo.
0:52:54 > 0:52:57'Everyone had told us that the river
0:52:57 > 0:53:00'was infested with man-eating crocodiles.
0:53:00 > 0:53:02'But it wasn't until one morning
0:53:02 > 0:53:04'three weeks after our arrival in Borneo
0:53:04 > 0:53:07'when I was looking for frogs that were whistling and chirping
0:53:07 > 0:53:11'in the swamps fringing the river bank, that I actually saw one.'
0:53:17 > 0:53:19'And it was no ordinary one either,
0:53:19 > 0:53:22'but the variety with the long thin nose. The gavial.'
0:53:27 > 0:53:30The only problem with it was it was tiny. I mean, it was a baby.
0:53:30 > 0:53:34So I had the idea that we would make a kind of joke of it.
0:53:34 > 0:53:37And that we would film it all in close-up
0:53:37 > 0:53:40and then I'd film myself taking off my shirt,
0:53:40 > 0:53:42and we hoped the audience would say,
0:53:42 > 0:53:45"He's not going to tackle that huge thing, is he?!"
0:53:51 > 0:53:53And only when I jumped on it
0:53:53 > 0:53:58would the people realise that it was just a tiny thing.
0:54:02 > 0:54:06'As you can see, no-one could class this little baby as a man-eater,
0:54:06 > 0:54:09'even though he had got quite a bite.'
0:54:09 > 0:54:11We shot it that way and edited it that way.
0:54:11 > 0:54:15But as far as I could see, nobody ever saw the joke.
0:54:27 > 0:54:30Happily, we had met a very nice English-speaking Dutchman
0:54:30 > 0:54:33called Daan Joubert who acted as an interpreter for us.
0:54:34 > 0:54:37'The village itself, like all Dayak villages,
0:54:37 > 0:54:40'consisted only of a single long house,
0:54:40 > 0:54:44'which stretched for several hundred yards along the river bank.
0:54:44 > 0:54:48'The people who watched us from the galleries of the house
0:54:48 > 0:54:49'seemed to be very different
0:54:49 > 0:54:51'from those we had met lower down the river.
0:54:51 > 0:54:54'The head man was on his way into the forest to hunt.
0:54:54 > 0:54:58'He showed us his stout blowpipe tipped with a spearhead,
0:54:58 > 0:55:01'which he said was very useful for stabbing.'
0:55:04 > 0:55:08'And his hat, which was very light and woven from palm leaves.
0:55:08 > 0:55:12'We both bought and wore ones like it later on and found them
0:55:12 > 0:55:16'to be ideal headwear for the Tropics. Cool and shady.'
0:55:18 > 0:55:20'He never carried a gun, he told us,
0:55:20 > 0:55:24'but relied on his parang - a crude and heavy Dayak bush knife.'
0:55:26 > 0:55:30'He said that we would be very welcome to stay in the village
0:55:30 > 0:55:32'for as long as we wished.'
0:55:32 > 0:55:34The long house never went to sleep.
0:55:34 > 0:55:36There was always somebody trundling about.
0:55:36 > 0:55:39So all the time you were going up and down like this.
0:55:39 > 0:55:43And down on the ground there were pigs and there were chickens
0:55:43 > 0:55:46and they were moving around all night.
0:55:46 > 0:55:50And on top of that there were some people chanting.
0:55:50 > 0:55:53And I don't think I slept at all the first night.
0:55:53 > 0:55:56In the morning, I said, "What was all the chanting about?"
0:55:56 > 0:55:58And they said, "They were chanting
0:55:58 > 0:56:02"because some important people have recently died.
0:56:02 > 0:56:07"It's a funeral chant." I said, "Really? Where are the bodies?"
0:56:07 > 0:56:13He said, "Didn't you notice them? They were just alongside you there."
0:56:13 > 0:56:16"Oh!" I said, "I didn't realise."
0:56:16 > 0:56:19But, no, it was a communal life all right.
0:56:19 > 0:56:21And they were lovely people.
0:56:21 > 0:56:25And one of them found a little baby bear. A cub.
0:56:26 > 0:56:29'The little cub was obviously very young.
0:56:29 > 0:56:33'I reckoned about two weeks old. He seemed to be in good condition,
0:56:33 > 0:56:38'but he hadn't got any teeth and obviously was still feeding on milk.
0:56:38 > 0:56:40'We had got a baby's bottle on board,
0:56:40 > 0:56:44'ready for such a case as this, but I wondered whether he was
0:56:44 > 0:56:47'yet old enough for us to be able to rear him.
0:56:47 > 0:56:52'First, however, he had to be put in a box and covered up,
0:56:52 > 0:56:54'so that he kept warm.'
0:56:56 > 0:56:59'As soon as the sun went down, it gets quite cold on that river,
0:56:59 > 0:57:02'and we didn't want to risk our new pet catching a chill.'
0:57:04 > 0:57:07BEAR CALLS OUT
0:57:07 > 0:57:10'And then I had to set about the urgent job of making
0:57:10 > 0:57:13'a bottle of dilute condensed milk.
0:57:13 > 0:57:15'Urgent because the little cub
0:57:15 > 0:57:17'was already calling very loudly indeed for his food.'
0:57:22 > 0:57:25'The milk seemed to be about the right temperature.'
0:57:30 > 0:57:35'And, to my relief, the young cub was soon guzzling away contentedly.'
0:57:44 > 0:57:46And here he is.
0:57:46 > 0:57:49Twice as large, I should say, but still just as hungry.
0:57:49 > 0:57:51And still making this extraordinary little noise which he used to
0:57:51 > 0:57:55make out there in Borneo. Oh, Benjamin!
0:57:55 > 0:57:58He's grown considerably since we had him.
0:57:58 > 0:58:01The cameraman who took all those pictures is here.
0:58:01 > 0:58:05And Charles has had him in his flat ever since we came back.
0:58:05 > 0:58:09Has he caused any trouble, Charles?
0:58:09 > 0:58:10Well, he's fairly destructive.
0:58:10 > 0:58:14He likes to eat the lino, newspapers, telephone directories,
0:58:14 > 0:58:16almost everything.
0:58:17 > 0:58:19Benjamin became known as the Zoo Quest Bear
0:58:19 > 0:58:23and I even wrote a little book about him. He was charming.
0:58:24 > 0:58:25Very nice.
0:58:28 > 0:58:31Well, you're very sweet. What about his teeth?
0:58:31 > 0:58:34- Have you had a bite from him? - Yes, he draws blood regularly now.
0:58:34 > 0:58:37When he misses the bottle and gets your finger instead.
0:58:37 > 0:58:41In that case, I think when you've finished, Benjamin,
0:58:41 > 0:58:44we'll let him go back to your flat and draw a little more blood!
0:58:46 > 0:58:50Benjamin had very bent little feet.
0:58:50 > 0:58:54And I took it for a walk on a little collar
0:58:54 > 0:59:00and a woman appeared from the distance shaking her umbrella at me
0:59:00 > 0:59:04and said, "Can't you see your dog's got rickets?"
0:59:04 > 0:59:08And then she looked at it and said, "Ooh, it's a bear."
0:59:08 > 0:59:10And she ran off in the opposite direction!
0:59:15 > 0:59:20After Borneo, David and Charles travelled eastwards across Java,
0:59:20 > 0:59:22the next island on their quest.
0:59:32 > 0:59:36'On our way through Java, we passed many beautiful buildings.'
0:59:37 > 0:59:40'But we saw none more lovely
0:59:40 > 0:59:43'than the beautiful Buddhist temple of Borobudur,
0:59:43 > 0:59:47'which was built over 1,000 years ago.'
0:59:51 > 0:59:57'It rises tier up on tier, shrine upon shrine,
0:59:57 > 1:00:01'until at the top there is one final gigantic monument.'
1:00:05 > 1:00:09JAVANESE TEMPLE MUSIC PLAYS
1:00:09 > 1:00:14'But Java is a country not only of temples, but of volcanoes.
1:00:14 > 1:00:15'And our route eastwards
1:00:15 > 1:00:18'took us past the still-active crater of Bromo.
1:00:22 > 1:00:24'The Jeep couldn't take us up the mountain,
1:00:24 > 1:00:27'so in the early dawn one morning,
1:00:27 > 1:00:30'we met some hillmen and hired some ponies.
1:00:36 > 1:00:41'By midday, the volcano collects a blanket of cloud above it,
1:00:41 > 1:00:45'but now, at five o'clock in the morning, it was still quite clear.
1:00:50 > 1:00:55'To get to the crater, we had to descend on to a great plain,
1:00:55 > 1:00:58'a sea of sand which surrounds the central cone.
1:01:10 > 1:01:14'Now, the ground steepened and we had to leave the horses
1:01:14 > 1:01:15'and continue on foot.'
1:01:26 > 1:01:29'Looking down into the depths of the crater,
1:01:29 > 1:01:33'it seemed easy enough to clamber right down to that central vent.
1:01:33 > 1:01:36'But our guides would go no further, for they said that the crater was
1:01:36 > 1:01:40'full of invisible pockets of poison gas
1:01:40 > 1:01:43'and that people who had gone farther down had never returned.
1:01:44 > 1:01:48'Even from where we were standing, the air was full of choking,
1:01:48 > 1:01:52'sulphurous fumes and the ground beneath our feet shook
1:01:52 > 1:01:56'as the clouds of poisonous smoke belched out from the vent.
1:01:56 > 1:02:00'It's down there that sacrifices are thrown every year
1:02:00 > 1:02:03'to placate the god of the volcano.
1:02:03 > 1:02:07'These days, only chickens, cloth and money.
1:02:07 > 1:02:11'But in olden times, the sacrifice was a human one.
1:02:21 > 1:02:26'We left the volcano with the clouds gathering in a shroud above it
1:02:26 > 1:02:27'and continued on our way.
1:02:30 > 1:02:33'And the next day, we reached the southern coast of Java
1:02:33 > 1:02:36'and the sea, the Indian Ocean.'
1:02:55 > 1:02:59Very often, we slept on the beaches, which are wonderful places.
1:03:02 > 1:03:06It was very lucky that Charles and I got on so well together.
1:03:06 > 1:03:09I certainly look on back with my friendship with him
1:03:09 > 1:03:10with great pleasure.
1:03:11 > 1:03:14I don't know why we hit it off.
1:03:14 > 1:03:16We hit it off from day one.
1:03:18 > 1:03:21I don't think we ever had a cross word.
1:03:21 > 1:03:26I don't think we ever worried about each other's problems.
1:03:26 > 1:03:31I knew he could cope with what he was doing and he relied,
1:03:31 > 1:03:33hopefully, on everything I was doing.
1:03:35 > 1:03:39The next day, they set off inland.
1:03:39 > 1:03:42CICADAS SING
1:03:43 > 1:03:45In Jack Lester's absence,
1:03:45 > 1:03:50David had to take on the role of catching animals, including snakes.
1:03:52 > 1:03:56'It looked enormous, and from its size and markings,
1:03:56 > 1:03:59'I was quite sure that it was a python
1:03:59 > 1:04:03'and therefore, non-poisonous, which was something of a relief.'
1:04:03 > 1:04:07So, I thought, "Oh, this is the moment!" Nothing frightened,
1:04:07 > 1:04:12I skipped up the tree and took out my trusty cutlass and I thought,
1:04:12 > 1:04:15"I won't grapple with the snake up in the tree,
1:04:15 > 1:04:17"I'll cut the branch down."
1:04:41 > 1:04:45The branch came down and I nipped down the tree
1:04:45 > 1:04:48and then had to face the python.
1:04:51 > 1:04:55So I tried to remember what I'd learnt in West Africa.
1:04:55 > 1:04:59I picked up a sack and tried to throw it over the animal's head,
1:04:59 > 1:05:00very inexpertly, I must say.
1:05:00 > 1:05:04It went nowhere near the head! But I was quite nervous, after all.
1:05:11 > 1:05:15But eventually, I managed to throw it over the animal's head
1:05:15 > 1:05:17and grasp it by the neck.
1:05:18 > 1:05:21'It's important to grab his tail as soon as you grab his head,
1:05:21 > 1:05:23'otherwise he'll wrap his great coils around you
1:05:23 > 1:05:26'and give you a very nasty squeeze.
1:05:31 > 1:05:33'And here he is in the studio.
1:05:33 > 1:05:36'The python is not a poisonous snake at all,
1:05:36 > 1:05:39'it kills its prey by squeezing it.'
1:05:39 > 1:05:45Of course, my expertise as an animal handler, a zoo man, as it were,
1:05:45 > 1:05:49was exposed rather painfully every now and again on television.
1:05:49 > 1:05:53Well, helping me... Helping me control...
1:05:53 > 1:05:55..this python is Mr Langwarne
1:05:55 > 1:05:58from the reptile house in the London Zoo.
1:05:58 > 1:06:02I'm pretending to be very accomplished and expert about snakes
1:06:02 > 1:06:04in front of Mr Langwarne,
1:06:04 > 1:06:07who was the head keeper of the reptile house.
1:06:07 > 1:06:09He's quite a handful now, isn't he?
1:06:09 > 1:06:11You could quite imagine how these powerful coils
1:06:11 > 1:06:14- could really give you quite a crush.- Oh, yes.
1:06:14 > 1:06:17He was very charitable towards my attempts at trying
1:06:17 > 1:06:19to control this wretched snake.
1:06:19 > 1:06:22- He's doing...- Well, it's a very good example
1:06:22 > 1:06:23of how he constricts his food.
1:06:23 > 1:06:26Shall I just show you, or will you lose your hand?
1:06:26 > 1:06:28No, I don't think so. You'll be able to get out eventually.
1:06:28 > 1:06:30Well, I think we'll untie you later.
1:06:30 > 1:06:32Thank you very much for coming.
1:06:34 > 1:06:37JAVANESE TEMPLE MUSIC PLAYS
1:06:42 > 1:06:44After leaving Java,
1:06:44 > 1:06:47the team continued their journey east onto Bali.
1:07:04 > 1:07:07A few minutes of travel was enough to show us
1:07:07 > 1:07:09that in coming to the island of Bali,
1:07:09 > 1:07:11we had come to a different world.
1:07:11 > 1:07:14There were high mud walls round the houses,
1:07:14 > 1:07:16which we'd never seen in Java.
1:07:16 > 1:07:19The people looked quite different.
1:07:19 > 1:07:22And as we travelled along the grassy tracks,
1:07:22 > 1:07:26we passed through the terraced rice fields for which Bali is famous.
1:07:32 > 1:07:35BOY PLAYS SULING
1:07:49 > 1:07:51SULING MUSIC CONTINUES
1:07:55 > 1:07:58It was an intoxicating place,
1:07:58 > 1:08:03because it was, er...full of beauty.
1:08:13 > 1:08:17But above all, we were impressed by the great number of temples.
1:08:17 > 1:08:20There were temples everywhere,
1:08:20 > 1:08:24and all were decorated with a wealth of intricate carvings.
1:08:26 > 1:08:29This one lay in the centre of a small forest.
1:08:32 > 1:08:36Many Balinese temples are sacred to a particular animal,
1:08:36 > 1:08:40and the courtyard of this one was haunted by a troop of monkeys,
1:08:40 > 1:08:45ever-hungry to snatch food from worshippers who came to the temple.
1:08:47 > 1:08:50It was a real joy to meet these bold creatures,
1:08:50 > 1:08:53even if they did do their best to steal things from my pocket.
1:08:53 > 1:08:56MONKEYS CHIRP
1:09:05 > 1:09:07When they are grooming one another,
1:09:07 > 1:09:09they're not simply looking for fleas,
1:09:09 > 1:09:13but are searching one another's skin for tasty little grains of salt.
1:09:24 > 1:09:28We had a problem. When we changed film quickly on the camera,
1:09:28 > 1:09:31normally you'd have a clapperboard.
1:09:31 > 1:09:34We didn't have clapperboards, so we weren't running in sync.
1:09:34 > 1:09:39So David invented a clever system - raffle tickets!
1:09:39 > 1:09:43He would always have them in his pocket,
1:09:43 > 1:09:46and when we changed a reel, he'd fish it out,
1:09:46 > 1:09:49and he'd just hold it up in front of the camera
1:09:49 > 1:09:52and stick it on the camera film,
1:09:52 > 1:09:55and that was our way of pre-editing the film
1:09:55 > 1:09:58and knowing what was on what.
1:10:01 > 1:10:04The whole business of 60mm film at the time,
1:10:04 > 1:10:08we didn't have any code of behaviour or any expertise, really.
1:10:08 > 1:10:11We just did it the way we thought was sensible.
1:10:11 > 1:10:13It was clockwork-driven
1:10:13 > 1:10:18and you had 40 seconds of film before it ran out.
1:10:18 > 1:10:23Then you had to stop and wind it up again. And it only took 100ft reels.
1:10:23 > 1:10:26That's two minutes 40 in 60mm.
1:10:26 > 1:10:30So, this is quite a handicap when you're filming.
1:10:30 > 1:10:36Especially when filming complex sequences, like a village festival.
1:10:36 > 1:10:39THEY PLAY RHYTHMICALLY
1:10:55 > 1:10:59The music of Bali is particularly beautiful,
1:10:59 > 1:11:03the gamelan music, and of the most brilliant kind.
1:11:09 > 1:11:14The gamelan plays and rehearses every night,
1:11:14 > 1:11:16every night in the village.
1:11:16 > 1:11:20'These young girls are only eight years old
1:11:20 > 1:11:24'and they've been training to perform this beautiful temple dance,
1:11:24 > 1:11:27'the Legong, since they were six.
1:11:27 > 1:11:32'They wear on their heads crowns of leather and gold leaf,
1:11:32 > 1:11:36'decorated with the ivory coloured blossoms of the frangipani tree.'
1:12:12 > 1:12:15While Charles filmed it, I recorded the music
1:12:15 > 1:12:19and I think Bali's gamelan music was heard for the first time
1:12:19 > 1:12:22by millions of people in Britain.
1:12:29 > 1:12:32The Balinese are not only great sculptors
1:12:32 > 1:12:33and instrumental musicians,
1:12:33 > 1:12:36but they are also great actors
1:12:36 > 1:12:43and they're continually re-enacting the stories from the Ramayana
1:12:43 > 1:12:47and from the Balinese version of some of the Hindu legends.
1:12:48 > 1:12:53'Now begins the masked play. A demon descends the temple steps.'
1:13:17 > 1:13:20It's a deeply religious thing.
1:13:20 > 1:13:23The villagers watch this enactment of the story again and again
1:13:23 > 1:13:25and again.
1:13:25 > 1:13:31One of the great epics is there's a battle between the evil,
1:13:31 > 1:13:36which is represented by a horrifying witch, who has a long tongue
1:13:36 > 1:13:41and huge long fingernails and is a terrifying figure.
1:13:41 > 1:13:44'Rangda, the dreaded evil witch.'
1:13:56 > 1:14:00Who then attacks a very friendly mythical creature called Barong.
1:14:02 > 1:14:06'And now comes the superb Barong, the mythical monster which lives
1:14:06 > 1:14:08'in the temple and is the guardian
1:14:08 > 1:14:11'of the village and of its graveyard.'
1:14:15 > 1:14:19And the battle between Rangda and the Barong is one of the great
1:14:19 > 1:14:23dramas that is enacted by these rituals which go on every day.
1:14:23 > 1:14:25'And now begins the fight.
1:14:32 > 1:14:35'The men from the village, in a state of trance,
1:14:35 > 1:14:39'rush down from the temple, waving their swords to attack Rangda
1:14:39 > 1:14:41'and protect the Barong.
1:14:41 > 1:14:45'But Rangda, by her evil power, is able to hold them at bay.'
1:14:54 > 1:14:58And then suddenly, the Rangda makes a spell, whoof!
1:14:58 > 1:15:00'With a flourish of her magic cloth,
1:15:00 > 1:15:03'she forces them to turn their daggers upon themselves.
1:15:03 > 1:15:07'The men, almost insensible, try to thrust these sharp
1:15:07 > 1:15:09'swords into their chest.'
1:15:09 > 1:15:13They really looked that they were going to pierce their abdomens
1:15:13 > 1:15:16with them and they pushed and they pushed.
1:15:16 > 1:15:18But the Barong is sufficiently powerful,
1:15:18 > 1:15:22so it means that the daggers don't pierce their chest.
1:15:22 > 1:15:24'The Barong's power is stronger than Rangda's
1:15:24 > 1:15:28'and he is able to protect his followers, so that no blood is shed.
1:15:36 > 1:15:39'Now, the priest comes from the temple
1:15:39 > 1:15:42'and scatters holy water to bring the men out of their trances.
1:15:56 > 1:16:00'The men rush back into the temple. The Barong disappears.
1:16:00 > 1:16:04'And all that is left are the mangy curs,
1:16:04 > 1:16:06'eating the priest's offerings to the gods.
1:16:11 > 1:16:15'I can offer no explanation for that extraordinary performance,'
1:16:15 > 1:16:18but I was a little worried lest Rangda the witch should decide to
1:16:18 > 1:16:20turn their swords on the BBC.
1:16:22 > 1:16:25Well, two days after that dance, we had to leave Bali
1:16:25 > 1:16:29and continue on the last leg of our trip to Komodo,
1:16:29 > 1:16:33the island of the giant lizards, the dragons.
1:16:33 > 1:16:36Komodo was on the western end, the farther end,
1:16:36 > 1:16:39of this banana-shaped island.
1:16:39 > 1:16:42So we went down to the harbour.
1:16:42 > 1:16:48There was one single sail 30ft little fishing boat there.
1:16:48 > 1:16:51And that was all there was.
1:16:51 > 1:16:55So, eventually, we managed to talk to the skipper of this boat
1:16:55 > 1:16:59and he said no problem and we said, "Can you take us to Komodo?"
1:16:59 > 1:17:01He said, "Oh, yes."
1:17:01 > 1:17:03So we agreed and there was Charles and me
1:17:03 > 1:17:07and there was Sabran, our guide, who was the interpreter.
1:17:07 > 1:17:11And there was the captain and some boys, who were his crew.
1:17:11 > 1:17:14We had no choice by then,
1:17:14 > 1:17:21so we loaded all our stores onto this miserable little 30-footer.
1:17:24 > 1:17:29'We loaded all our equipment into the hold beneath the tiny cabin.
1:17:29 > 1:17:31'That was the tape recorder.
1:17:33 > 1:17:35'Our kit,
1:17:38 > 1:17:40'and the camera.
1:17:41 > 1:17:43'We didn't take much food
1:17:43 > 1:17:46'because we expected to be able to catch enough fish to last us
1:17:46 > 1:17:49'for the few days it was going to take us to get to Komodo.
1:17:51 > 1:17:53'Here comes Sabran.
1:17:57 > 1:17:58'The sail goes up.
1:18:03 > 1:18:05'We haul up the anchor.
1:18:08 > 1:18:09'And at last, we're off.
1:18:11 > 1:18:15'We headed away from the shore and soon,
1:18:15 > 1:18:18'the trade winds were filling our sails.
1:18:22 > 1:18:25'The boys took it in turn on the tiller.
1:18:25 > 1:18:29'This is Hasan, a cheerful lad who unfortunately was not a particularly
1:18:29 > 1:18:33'good steersman, as he had the habit of falling asleep at the tiller.'
1:18:33 > 1:18:36The boy would fall asleep, day or night,
1:18:36 > 1:18:40and we'd finish up with this awful crunching noise in the night,
1:18:40 > 1:18:43to find that we were on a coral island.
1:18:43 > 1:18:47So I said, "I think we're on a coral island." He said, "Argh!
1:18:47 > 1:18:51"They are no good!" "What are we going to do?"
1:18:51 > 1:18:53We eventually poled ourselves off.
1:18:55 > 1:18:58'Sabran, always eager to make himself useful,
1:18:58 > 1:19:01'had quickly improvised a kitchen in the stern.
1:19:05 > 1:19:09'He had found an empty petrol tin, which would serve as a grate,
1:19:09 > 1:19:12'and in it, he had lit a wood fire.'
1:19:15 > 1:19:22The trip took nearly three weeks. We lived entirely on boiled rice.
1:19:22 > 1:19:28The fish that we were going to have was non-existent.
1:19:28 > 1:19:33We said, "Where's your fishing tackle?" This was early on.
1:19:33 > 1:19:36"Why aren't you fishing?" He said, "I'm no fisherman."
1:19:39 > 1:19:44'To the south of us stretched the mountainous coast of Flores.
1:19:44 > 1:19:47'Somewhere, 200 miles ahead, lay Komodo.
1:19:49 > 1:19:53'The wind was strong and fair and we were making a good four knots
1:19:53 > 1:19:55'through the brilliant clear blue sea.'
1:20:02 > 1:20:03And I then said to the captain,
1:20:03 > 1:20:07"How long will it be before we get to Komodo?"
1:20:07 > 1:20:11And the captain said, "Tidak tahu," which means "I don't know".
1:20:13 > 1:20:15The only map we had was the airline map
1:20:15 > 1:20:19and Komodo was rather smaller than a full stop,
1:20:19 > 1:20:21a little dot on the western end.
1:20:21 > 1:20:26And he looked at this map and he said, "Where are we?"
1:20:26 > 1:20:28An awful thought struck me.
1:20:28 > 1:20:32I said, "You have been to Komodo before, haven't you?"
1:20:32 > 1:20:36He said, "Belum," and I didn't know what that meant,
1:20:36 > 1:20:39so I had to go down to the hold and get out my little Indonesian
1:20:39 > 1:20:44dictionary and it said "belum - not yet".
1:20:45 > 1:20:49So he had no idea where we were going.
1:20:49 > 1:20:53We said to him, "Are you sure you know where you are?"
1:20:53 > 1:20:58And he said, "We are there," and he pointed to Borneo,
1:20:58 > 1:21:01which was probably about 1,000 miles away from us.
1:21:01 > 1:21:07'It was very hot in the blazing sun and Hasan draped his sarong over
1:21:07 > 1:21:10'his head to protect him from the heat.
1:21:10 > 1:21:13'And we had nothing to do but to lie on deck
1:21:13 > 1:21:15'and wonder what lay ahead of us in Komodo.
1:21:16 > 1:21:20'Our fresh water was stored in this earthenware jar,
1:21:20 > 1:21:22'lashed to the tiny cabin.
1:21:22 > 1:21:25'Unfortunately, it got very hot in the sun.'
1:21:25 > 1:21:28It could have been soup because it had nothing
1:21:28 > 1:21:31but mosquito larvae wriggling in it.
1:21:31 > 1:21:34'But nonetheless, it was quite refreshing.'
1:21:36 > 1:21:41This just went on and on and on and we were hungry,
1:21:41 > 1:21:45sleeping out on deck, mosquitoes.
1:21:45 > 1:21:49So it was in the evening and it was blowing quite a gale, actually,
1:21:49 > 1:21:52and so I said to the captain, "I think we go this way now."
1:21:53 > 1:21:58But the sea rose and it rose and it got darker and it got darker
1:21:58 > 1:22:02and it became quite dangerous.
1:22:04 > 1:22:07And suddenly, we were in whirlpools.
1:22:07 > 1:22:11And the waves were tremendous. What were we going to do?
1:22:11 > 1:22:13The water was going round, the ship was going round.
1:22:13 > 1:22:15You could see the sort of fangs of coral,
1:22:15 > 1:22:19rocks, in the middle of this whirlpool.
1:22:19 > 1:22:22So we were poling away and it's pouring with rain.
1:22:22 > 1:22:24Quite honestly, neither of us
1:22:24 > 1:22:28were sure that we would ever see each other again.
1:22:28 > 1:22:31Unfortunately, we weren't to show any of this on television
1:22:31 > 1:22:33because of course, we weren't filming.
1:22:33 > 1:22:38Charles wasn't filming, Charles was poling away like the rest of us.
1:22:38 > 1:22:39It was that dicey.
1:22:39 > 1:22:41And the captain was saying things like,
1:22:41 > 1:22:44"Setengah mati, setengah mati!"
1:22:44 > 1:22:48He's saying, "I'm half dead! Setengah mati!"
1:22:48 > 1:22:52And finally, about four o'clock in the morning, just before dawn,
1:22:52 > 1:22:55we managed to get out of the whirlpool area
1:22:55 > 1:22:57and into calmer waters in a little bay.
1:22:59 > 1:23:04'So, at last, we sailed safely into the wide, calm bay of Komodo.
1:23:05 > 1:23:10'The island looked most exciting, as we sailed close by its shores.
1:23:12 > 1:23:15'Brilliant white beaches of coral sand,
1:23:15 > 1:23:19'clumps of bush near the water's edge, and above them,
1:23:19 > 1:23:24'gaunt, bare, volcanic hills, covered in sunburnt brown grass,
1:23:24 > 1:23:27'with a few palm trees here and there.
1:23:27 > 1:23:31'This was the home of the dragon, which we'd come so far to see.
1:23:47 > 1:23:51'We were so happy and relieved to have arrived after such a long
1:23:51 > 1:23:56'and tricky voyage that to our eyes, the village seemed a real paradise.
1:23:59 > 1:24:03'The Petinggi, or headman, was sitting on the steps of his house.
1:24:03 > 1:24:06'He welcomed us very kindly and invited us inside.'
1:24:09 > 1:24:13And the chief, the Petinggi, gave us a little feast and during
1:24:13 > 1:24:17that, he said, "You know, that captain of yours is not a good man.
1:24:17 > 1:24:19"He's actually a gun runner.
1:24:19 > 1:24:22"He's been smuggling guns to rebels in Sulawesi
1:24:22 > 1:24:26"and the navy is after him."
1:24:26 > 1:24:30That's why he was the only person in the harbour.
1:24:30 > 1:24:32All the rest were out fishing.
1:24:32 > 1:24:37With a lucky escape behind them, the team continued on their quest.
1:24:37 > 1:24:40This time with the added ingredient of dragon bait.
1:24:42 > 1:24:45'We walked, carrying the two goats, with our cameras
1:24:45 > 1:24:49'and recording equipment, ready for this final stage in our expedition.'
1:24:51 > 1:24:55The Komodo dragons had never been filmed, at least not professionally.
1:24:57 > 1:25:03And this was going to be a top draw if we got pictures of one.
1:25:05 > 1:25:08The only problem was that there was not a lot of light.
1:25:08 > 1:25:10There was quite heavy bush there.
1:25:10 > 1:25:13It was too dark, according to Charles, for us
1:25:13 > 1:25:18to use our colour stock, so we had to film it in black and white.
1:25:18 > 1:25:21'Now, we had to set about building a trap.
1:25:21 > 1:25:24'All the materials you need to make it can be
1:25:24 > 1:25:25'obtained in the forest itself.'
1:25:29 > 1:25:32They attached the trap door to a simple trigger mechanism,
1:25:32 > 1:25:35using a rope.
1:25:35 > 1:25:38'He put a piece of goat's flesh inside
1:25:38 > 1:25:41'and then shrouded that end with palm leaves.'
1:25:43 > 1:25:46RUSTLING
1:25:46 > 1:25:50'We waited, but not for long. Within half an hour, there was
1:25:50 > 1:25:52'a rustle in the bush and there was the dragon.
1:25:59 > 1:26:01'This was tremendously exciting for us.
1:26:01 > 1:26:04'Our first sight of this magnificent monster,
1:26:04 > 1:26:06'the climax of four months of arduous travel.
1:26:07 > 1:26:09'He was enormous.
1:26:09 > 1:26:13'As he circled us, flicking out his great yellow tongue,
1:26:13 > 1:26:18'he looked almost as though he had walked out of some prehistoric age.'
1:26:18 > 1:26:25This enormous monster, the size of a really big crocodile, appeared,
1:26:25 > 1:26:30sniffed the air and eventually, it went in after this dead goat.
1:26:36 > 1:26:38'And down came the door.
1:26:38 > 1:26:40'Hastily, we piled boulders on the door,
1:26:40 > 1:26:42'so that he couldn't lift it up.
1:26:42 > 1:26:45'We had got him.'
1:26:45 > 1:26:49But we didn't have the permit to take it away, so we had to content
1:26:49 > 1:26:54ourselves with just measuring it and looking at it in close detail.
1:26:54 > 1:26:59So, we let this first famous dragon go and away it went into the bush.
1:27:02 > 1:27:05We'd had to use black and white negative stock
1:27:05 > 1:27:08for this climax of the whole trip.
1:27:08 > 1:27:12We thought we really ought to use the colour negative stock too,
1:27:12 > 1:27:16if we could dragons out in the open, as indeed we did,
1:27:16 > 1:27:19because on the island, there are a lot of them.
1:27:22 > 1:27:24It was, I think,
1:27:24 > 1:27:28the first colour film taken of a Komodo dragon in the wild.
1:27:32 > 1:27:37Like the series before it, Zoo Quest For A Dragon was another big hit.
1:27:38 > 1:27:42The Zoo Quest expeditions did a lot for me.
1:27:43 > 1:27:46I never had to look for work again.
1:27:47 > 1:27:51And David became a very famous person
1:27:51 > 1:27:55and it's Zoo Quest who made him that.
1:27:55 > 1:28:00And Charles and David have remained lifelong friends.
1:28:00 > 1:28:04They were good days and I wouldn't change them.
1:28:04 > 1:28:08I think when you're 28, you do things rather differently from
1:28:08 > 1:28:13when you're 88, and you do silly things, which we undoubtedly did.
1:28:13 > 1:28:15Looking back,
1:28:15 > 1:28:21I don't think you would let two kids in their 20s just go off like that
1:28:21 > 1:28:25and nobody asked us anything about health and safety or anything else.
1:28:25 > 1:28:30I mean, we just disappeared and they said, "When will you be back?"
1:28:30 > 1:28:34"Ooh, just before Christmas, I think." "Righto, goodbye."
1:28:34 > 1:28:36Happy days.
1:28:36 > 1:28:39That was the end of our Zoo Quest. Goodnight.