:00:00. > :00:00.magical characters. The BBC have will hope that this will go into the
:00:00. > :00:08.sixth decade. Now on BBC News, it is time for Meet
:00:09. > :00:11.The Author with Nick Higham. When Helen McDonald's father died
:00:12. > :00:18.unexpectedly, she was overwhelmed with grief. Her response was
:00:19. > :00:29.unusual. She bought a cost walk, the fierce dust of all hawks and set out
:00:30. > :00:38.to train it. She tells the story of the goshawk in a vivid book, in part
:00:39. > :00:40.a memoir, in part natural and in part a biography of another writer
:00:41. > :01:02.who set out to train a goshawk. Helen McDonald, you started training
:01:03. > :01:09.your goshawk who you called Mabel, after the death of your father. Some
:01:10. > :01:13.people may find that odd that you reacted by training a killer.
:01:14. > :01:19.Absolutely, I can see how that might seem peculiar. But I think what I
:01:20. > :01:24.was doing was really running from a world I did not understand any more.
:01:25. > :01:31.I saw the goshawk as all the things I wanted to be. She was very
:01:32. > :01:34.solitary, self`possessed, a bit full of rage and murderous nurse. These
:01:35. > :01:40.are all the things you feel after grief. By associating with her and
:01:41. > :01:53.training her, I was interacting with the Demons I was facing. Used to be
:01:54. > :01:58.a Falconer but goshawks are difficult to train? They are very
:01:59. > :02:05.fractious and nervous birds and famously very deadly birds. French
:02:06. > :02:10.Falk ands used to call them the kitchen birds because you could
:02:11. > :02:16.catch so much game you could feed a family. What drew you to Falcons and
:02:17. > :02:24.hawks generally? I was very young when I became its first with them. I
:02:25. > :02:30.thought they were the most perfect things ever made. My parents would
:02:31. > :02:35.drag me to zoos and sit in coffee shops while I stared at them for
:02:36. > :02:39.hours on end. They were part of who I was. One explanation is in their
:02:40. > :02:45.grace and elegance. There is some footage from a recent one show which
:02:46. > :02:51.shows how remarkable goshawks are when they fly.
:02:52. > :02:54.Throughout woodlands in the UK, there is a fearsome predator, and
:02:55. > :03:00.incredibly fast and skilful flyer and if you are their prey, you do
:03:01. > :03:08.not stand a chance. One blink and you miss it. The only way to see
:03:09. > :03:15.what is going on is with a high`speed camera. They moved with
:03:16. > :03:21.tremendous agility. What makes them so hard to train? They are
:03:22. > :03:26.particularly wild kind of Hawk. With most birds of prey, once you have
:03:27. > :03:34.tamed them, they remain tame without any further need to get used to
:03:35. > :03:38.people. Goshawks return to the wild. It is a constant process of exposing
:03:39. > :03:44.them to people, the sights and sounds of modern life. That is a
:03:45. > :03:49.very stressful and it costing experience but a very rewarding one.
:03:50. > :03:53.There are photographs of Mabel and you with Mabel out in the
:03:54. > :04:01.countryside around Cambridge where you live. She seems very calm. She
:04:02. > :04:06.was an unusually tame goshawk. I prepared myself for a frightening
:04:07. > :04:10.monster. She became bizarrely tame. We used to play catch with paper
:04:11. > :04:14.balls at night and watched television together. And yet during
:04:15. > :04:23.the days, we would go out and I would watch a hunt like a wild
:04:24. > :04:29.hawk. She was a strange Bridge between two worlds. You write in
:04:30. > :04:34.this book about your own grief. At times, clearly, you were overwhelmed
:04:35. > :04:38.by it. You write about the extraordinary challenge of training
:04:39. > :04:46.the temp three macro. You also write about a man called T H White who was
:04:47. > :04:51.the author of a book about King Arthur, who is now forgotten writer
:04:52. > :04:58.but was a significant figure in the last century. He tried himself to
:04:59. > :05:05.train a goshawk and failed. Yes. It is a very sad story. One of the
:05:06. > :05:11.themes of the book is the way people use nature and animals as mirrors of
:05:12. > :05:17.their own needs. TH White's story is a perfect example of this. He was a
:05:18. > :05:22.very sad broken man. He struggled with his sexuality and had an
:05:23. > :05:26.abusive childhood. He was training with goshawk. He was fighting
:05:27. > :05:30.himself. All the things he tried to master, he tried to master in the
:05:31. > :05:35.hawk. There is a sense that his story and my story in form each
:05:36. > :05:40.other. We were both running from our different Demons. What happened to
:05:41. > :05:46.Mabel? The events of the book were six or seven years ago. It took me a
:05:47. > :05:51.long time to write this book. Mabel, I flew for many more seasons. She
:05:52. > :05:57.went up to a breeding programme and was put in a aviary with a very sexy
:05:58. > :06:03.male goshawk. But unfortunately she contracted a horrible disease which
:06:04. > :06:06.killed her overnight. It has been the bane of Falk and as for
:06:07. > :06:13.centuries, this disease. She is much, much missed. I still have the
:06:14. > :06:19.numbered metal ring which she wore on her leg and I keep it in my
:06:20. > :06:28.jewellery box at home. Now you have a parrot? I have a parrot which, all
:06:29. > :06:36.being said, is a much cuddlier bird than a goshawk. Thank you.
:06:37. > :06:43.It was a pretty decent day across the UK. Bar the odd shower it is
:06:44. > :06:44.fine for the rest of the evening. Into tomorrow