Just under
33 years ago the newborn Grylls child was given the nickname Bear at
just a day old. Carrying such a moniker around could have gone two ways
- either the child could rise to the challenge and become a big, brave,
powerful and self-reliant outdoorsy-type, or they grow into a nine-stone
stripling who jumps at their own shadow. See if you can guess which
path Bear adopted.
He has
served in the special forces, broken his back in a parachuting accident,
climbed Everest, crossed the Arctic Ocean in an inflatable boat, and
trained with the Foreign Legion. His latest venture consists of parachuting
into some of the most inhospitable terrain on earth, from dense rainforest
to frozen mountains to scorching desert, equipped with nothing but the
clothes he is wearing, and finding his way out using his strength, courage
and survival skills.
The resulting
Channel 4 series, Born Survivor: Bear Grylls, is remarkable, not least
for Grylls' astonishing feats of endurance, bravery, stoicism and all-terrain
savvy. He is a cross between Ray Mears and Rambo, with a little bit
of the Jackass crowd thrown in: In one memorably unpleasant scene he
drinks the liquid from elephant dung.
But perhaps
the most surprising thing about Grylls is that, in person, he is friendly,
modest, funny and self-deprecating. Here, he talks about why no-one
will insure him, the worst night of his life in the French Alps, and
that unforgettable elephant dung moment.
Where
did the idea for the show come from?
I'd done a show for Channel 4 last year called Escape to the Legion,
and they wanted me to do something else. They knew that a big part of
my life has always been the climbing stuff and survival stuff, and they
said 'Why don't we just drop you into a lot of different hell holes,
equipped with nothing, and you do what you have to do to survive.' And
they made it very clear that it could be very raw and very real, and
it wouldn't all have to work. 'If you fail to light a fire, that's great,
we want it to have a real feel to it. It doesn't all have to be very
slick and polished, you can be covered in shit, sweat and blood, and
everything can be as gruesome as you like. Just do what you would do,
for real, to get out of these places.'
You
must have had some contingency plans or safety precautions?
Yeah, definitely. If needed there was anti-venom for snakes, they said
they could helicopter stuff in, there were really good safety measures
if needed. And that gave me the confidence to really get stuck in, to
go for it. And we went to some amazing places this year, from pretty
aggressive jungle to unforgiving desert to huge Alaskan mountains. Even
though it's been hard work where I've spent a lot of time cold, wet
and quite cheesed off, really it's been a real privilege and everything
that I love, and one of those rare things that I'm good at. And it's
worked and I'm alive, so I feel very lucky really.
Before
you go into each different environment, do you research the flora and
fauna and landscape and so on?
Yeah, that's a very important part of it. What I also have is three
days in country with the local rangers, the search-and-rescue guys.
There'll be a local survival guide who will outline the useful plants,
the dangerous animals at this time of year, all of that. So I get a
really good, thorough briefing. So it's like I'm a sponge cake, and
wherever I go I get given a different topping.
Do
you find being in an excessively hot or cold environment worse?
One of the things I've learned in my life is that both are pretty bloody
unpleasant. I remember as a kid I used to wonder what it was like being
absolutely, properly, properly cold, and I think I've got that one really
out of my system. But they're both very, very dangerous. I was in Australia
recently, and in the Outback it reaches 57 degrees, which is unbelievably
hot. They say if you get dropped in the middle of that with no survival
skills and no water, you'll be dead within three hours. Both are very
unforgiving. In Alaska I came down off a big mountain and eventually
reached the coastline and found a deserted saw mill, where I found a
little rowing boat under a pile of wood. I used it, and I found myself
completely surrounded by sea ice, and the boat then started leaking
and taking on water, and eventually it just sank under me. And I had
a 500 metre swim through all these sea icebergs. I ended up very close
to being hypothermic! I'm determined to one day do a show in a place
which is really just nice and temperate!
How
about going and staying in a nice hotel for a holiday programme?
Exactly! My wife keeps saying to me "There are so many lovely things
you could be doing on TV, like a holiday programme. You truly have the
most ridiculous job." On the other hand, she's always put up with
me doing this stuff, and it's what I love. And it's work, and I'm alive
and in many ways I'm much more comfortable in those places. My confidence
is often much higher when I'm out there than when I'm back here. For
example, I had to do the Oprah Winfrey show last week, and I found that
absolutely terrifying. She said 'What are you scared of?' and I said
'Well, if I'm honest, this, for me, is really scary'.
You
referred to your wife. You two have a young family, so she must be very
tolerant to let you do what you do.
She's unbelievably patient and long-suffering. It has been hard, because
I've been away so much filming, and they've all been reasonably risky
endeavours. I think that's always going to be hard, and I hate being
away from them. We've got two little boys who are just heaven, and I
find that the hardest part of my job.
In
the programme in the French Alps, you spent a night in a snow cave that
you'd dug into a mountain. You described it as the worst night of your
life. Was that true?
It would certainly rank quite high. When I've been on climbing expeditions
you've always got sleeping bags, a roll mat and food. When you've got
nothing, it's really hard. Similarly, I'd spent time in the jungle before,
with the army, but I'd never done it with no mosquito nets, no hammock,
no waterproof, no machete. They're all little factors, but they all
become major hurdles when you're getting bitten alive all night, you've
got snakes and scorpions crawling over your legs in the night, you're
struggling to get a fire going and struggling to get any food or drinkable
water. It's significantly harder, and I've really struggled through
a lot of these things. I think one of the nice things about the series
is that it's very human, it's very real, and it's not always perfect.
It's not 'this is how you build a canoe or make a fire' it's 'I've got
to make a fire or things will be dire here.
You
had a camera crew with you. Did they have luxury tents and food and
things?
Well, I should say that the camera crew are the real heroes in my eyes
in all of this. It was basically the same two guys, Simon and Paul,
for the whole series. They're strong and they're reliable and 90 per
cent of what I've done they've been there with me, and they've carried
all their kit around. Obviously they've got waterproofs and proper food
and that sort of stuff, but in my eyes they're the unsung heroes of
all of this. They might get helicoptered out for a night to recharge
camera batteries and put back again in the morning, but they're great
guys, and really they've been a rock for me in much of this. They've
become real friends.
In
one of the programmes, you manage to catch a fish, and you then bite
into it live. Are you worried about what the animal lobby will make
of that?
If you're in a survival situation, a lot of prejudices get left behind,
if you want to stay alive. I think that's one of the messages of the
series. I'm pretty normal at home, I love my kids, I do the same as
everyone else, I cook everything properly. But you're in a different
arena out there, and you do what you have to do. Sometimes it's you
or the snake. None of the animals suffer. I show the most humane way
of killing them - like with the fish, you bite straight through the
backbone and it dies instantly. Similarly, with a snake, I grab it by
the tail and swing it over my head, and it looks pretty brutal but actually
it's instantaneous. In one programme I kill a big wild rabbit using
a throwing stick, and I knocked it straight out and broke its neck.
Nobody likes animals to suffer, I don't want any animals to suffer.
I caught a big turtle in the Everglades, and I was drinking its blood
and stuff, it all looks pretty grim, with blood dripping everywhere,
but I killed the turtle humanely and quickly.
You
jumped into a frozen lake at one point, and you turned out to be wearing
an extremely natty pair of Union Jack boxer shorts. Had you chosen those
specifically for filming?
I think a vital ingredient in a survivor's arsenal is a sense of humour.
I wanted to wear my Union Jack boxer shorts for that, definitely. I
wanted to keep the British end up, especially as it was a series showing
in America as well as on Channel 4.
Are
you scared at all when you're out in the wilds?
Yeah, often. I've spent so much of my life being scared, whether it's
on high mountains or things I did with the army, and I think what I've
learned is that that's okay. I've been scared a lot doing this series,
I've been scared a lot in various climbing incidents where I've found
myself in quite precarious situations, but that's okay. Being super-butch
isn't real, and what it does is isolate people. It's about keeping going,
not about the absence of fear. The great survivors, the people who manage
to get through against insurmountable odds, don't do so because they're
brave, but because they have a will to live. That's the important thing.
That's why I really didn't want this series to be made to look heroic,
and it hasn't been. There's more depth to it than that, and I don't
look heroic at all.
No,
of course not. I thought I could do much better, as I sat watching it
eating a bag of crisps.
You're absolutely right, I suspect. Although I think it's slightly easier
from the sofa.
Do
you have life insurance?
I don't know - I think the producers sorted that out. I did try, a few
years ago, to get insurance, and the company said I was uninsurable
- and part of me was quite flattered and thought that was quite cool.
But I've now got to the stage where I think 'Bugger cool, I would quite
like somebody to insure me.'
Have
you ever tasted anything worse than the liquid from the elephant dung
that you drank in this series?
No. It's hard to get away from the fact that that was a pretty terrible
drink. It was like squeezing out a wet nappy. But it was something showed
to me by a ranger when I was down there doing some anti-poaching stuff.
The reason why it works is that the elephant's digestion is really inefficient
and very fast, and stuff that comes out, the liquid from it is almost
sterile. So you can drink it, it's just not going to be particularly
palatable. That definitely ranked pretty low on the list.
What
was your best moment in making the series?
I think one of the biggest privileges for me was in Kenya, where I came
across a Lion kill at about 5am. A zebra had stumbled across a pride
of lions in the night, and the lions had just taken it down and then
drunk all the blood and eaten all the soft organs, and they'd eaten
so much meat that they'd had to go off and find water. And I'd found
this kill because there were hundreds of vultures flapping above it
as it got light. I'd been walking through the night and got to this
kill and all the vultures scattered - they were so full of meat that
they couldn't take off, so they were waddling away. But the carcass
of the zebra still had a third of the meat on it, and I was able to
cut into the neck of this zebra and eat the meat raw straight off its
neck, and the zebra still being warm. And it was somehow a real privilege
to be there eating the same thing as the kings of the animal kingdom,
seeing how they operated at the sharp end, living as early man had done.
And
the worst moment?
I had to do a quite scary swim across an alligator-infested river in
the swamps of the Everglades. There were some extremely big alligators
on the banks. They can stay submerged for about 45 minutes, so I watched
for 45 minutes to make sure there were none still lurking on the bottom
and they were all on the banks. The way you need to do it is to swim
underwater, because a lot of alligator attacks are cases of mistaken
identity, where they think your bobbing head is a bird or something.
So I had to swim this 50 metre-wide river underwater in this murky stuff,
and I couldn't see much, and that was pretty scary. And I had a shark
incident on a raft in the South Pacific. But I think in many ways the
worst moments are those times when you're in the middle of the rainforest
and it's been torrential rain for 48 hours and you've got no waterproof
and no food, there's no drinkable water, you're lost, everything you
have is soaking, and you think 'What the hell am I doing here?' But
I always carry a little laminated picture of my wife and kids that I
have stuffed into the insole of my shoe, and that's my 'hope packet'.
You
have a strong faith - is that important to you when you're out in extreme
environments?
Yes, but my Christian faith is also a big part of my everyday life.
I always say that it takes a proud man to say that he needs nothing,
and I freely admit that I've needed that faith in my life, and it's
been a real backbone for me. But it's not just a support when I'm out
there, it's a wonderful thing in really positive moments as well. I
remember when I was in the Amazon, in the middle of a really dense bit
of rainforest, where no human would have ever been or probably will
ever go again, and looking up and seeing at the top of a tree a beautiful
bright purple flower, and thinking 'Nobody's ever going to see that
flower. That's God's extravagance.' Even though no-one's ever going
to see it, he just can't help but create something beautiful.
What's
next for you?
I'm just finishing off filming the second series of Stranded, I've got
three more to film. So I leave tomorrow morning, we're going to Mexico
tomorrow, then on to Iceland, and then one more, and that's the second
series done. And then I'm going back to Everest in November, for a mission
with a twist.
Lastly,
what on earth do you tell people you do for a living?
I sort of generally mumble awkwardly and look at my feet and try and
avoid answering the question. What's hard is that my little boys just
love all these adventures, and they love me telling them about it. But
you don't want them going off to school saying 'My dad skydives into
all these places' and so on - they'll end up getting bullied. So I tell
them to say that I'm an accountant.
By
Benjie Goodhart
Bear
Grylls
Series 2 interview
