Bear Grylls
spends his days travelling to the world’s most inhospitable environments
– from freezing in Siberia to scorching in the Sahara –
demonstrating extreme survival skills for his Channel 4 series, Born
Survivor. But he lives in a houseboat on the Thames with wife,
Shara, and their two boys, Jesse and Marmaduke. Over tea and flapjacks
he discusses eating yak eyeballs, the dangers of freezing, naked, to
the ice and the joy of getting home.
What’s
new in the second series of Born Survivor?
More extreme locations, tougher conditions: everything ranging from
130-degree heat in the Sahara to minus 40 in Siberia. Some of the most
aggressive jungles and swamps in the world. It’s me at my limit
– I think the producer’s always keen to up the ante, and
make the locations and stuff I do bigger and better. I definitely do
feel well out of all comfort zones, but I hope that makes good TV!
Having
travelled to Siberia, the Panamanian swamps and the Sahara, which is
the most inhospitable?
I think the extremes of temperatures are always hard. In the Sahara
we had ridiculous heats where three of our crew had to be evacuated
with heat stroke. And then in Siberia I had to swim under the ice of
a frozen lake. I was standing there before diving into a big hole –
with no clothes on – but my feet had actually frozen to the ice.
I just thought: “this can’t be good for you”.
But I also kind
of thrive on that. There’s no room to get things wrong in those
conditions. In more temperate places you can always get away with a
few mistakes, but in those sorts of temperatures you can’t. It’s
definitely where it’s toughest to film. I enjoy really having
to raise my game. We’ve got a brilliant crew of people who come
with me and I really love to see how they cope and help them through
stuff.
Diving
into a frozen lake naked sounds pretty terrifying, but which is worse,
the ice or the Sahara?
They’re both mad, they’re both very unforgiving: that’s
the bottom line. That’s why I love being at home: I don’t
get bitten by any crocodiles, I don’t get bitten by snakes, I’m
not roasting my arse off or freezing my nuts off! But extreme heat and
cold are both hard. Cold for me is particularly tricky because I’ve
got some damage from frostnip from previous climbing expeditions. It
means I really have to fight to keep the circulation in my toes and
fingers now, and I had quite a struggle in Siberia with that a lot of
the time.
Have
you ever thought: “Oh my God, this time I’ve gone too far
and I really shouldn’t have done this”?
I do quite often feel well out of my comfort zone. But also I’m
aware that that’s what I’ve been trained to do, it’s
where I come alive and it’s one of the few things in life I do
okay. And I do find, when it really gets difficult, I do thrive on that
in a weird way: something sort of clicks into place. But I think a lot
of the pressure comes from me more than anything.
And
the menu is pretty unappetising; the stuff you eat sounds indigestible.
Food sucks generally in the survival world, but it’s what it’s
about: leaving your prejudices behind and doing whatever you need to
do. But definitely this series has seen some pretty terrible stuff,
from raw goat’s testicles and the fluids in camels’ intestines,
to live snakes and grubs the size of a kid’s hand. Yak eyeballs,
squirrel brains… it’s all there! It’s almost always
raw, because you’re in the jungle, or wherever, and starting fires
is hard and you’re on the move. In one of the shows I kept a snake
alive until we could eat it fresh – because things go off so quickly
with the humidity and heat. A couple of hours and food’s bad,
so I end up eating it raw.
But I love getting
home and having nice flapjacks and cups of tea. It makes me really,
really appreciate home and I don’t tell Shara, my wife, too much
about my work otherwise I think I’d never be allowed back into
the marital bedroom.
Does
home keep you going? Is it something you focus on while you’re
out there?
Home keeps me going through so much, through lots of big expeditions
and through all of these programmes. I always keep a little picture
of my kids in the sole of my shoe. I use it so much at difficult times
when it’s been pouring with rain for 24 hours in the middle of
the jungle. You’re cold, you’re wet, you’re not sure
where you are: we all have those moments, and such a key part of survival
is trying to keep cheerful.
If you look at the
people who do survive disasters, it doesn’t always come down to
knowledge; it’s who has the biggest drive to get home or get out
of a situation. So I spend a lot of time really looking forward to home,
it’s very precious to me.
Do
squirrel brains or yaks’ eyes actually have much nutritional value?
They can’t be very big or filling.
There’s loads of energy in all that sort of stuff. A lot of the
struggle is killing these things. I got bitten by a snake recently filming
in a jungle and bit the head off it and then had this huge snake I couldn’t
eat – I ate as much as I could raw, but I can’t manage all
of a snake that big.
But so much survival
is not about hunting big game; it’s about foraging all the time
on berries or leaves or fruits you find or little grubs, little crickets
or grasshoppers or whatever. You can waste a lot of energy going for
the bigger stuff, but generally, if you do come across a snake, great.
I caught a huge
bullfrog the size of a football; I was thrashing around in this elephant
mud hole, trying to get this thing out, whacking it with these bramble
branches to sort of pull it out… it’s all part of the job!
If
someone finds themselves in an inhospitable environment, is there one
key survival tip you would give them?
For me I can summarise it in three things: first my faith, that’s
really helped me in so many difficult times; second, never, ever, ever,
ever, ever give up – good Winston Churchill advice, at the heart
of survival; and third, think outside the box.
So much survival
is common sense. It’s about being innovative with things, about
coming up with ingenious ways of doing it. I’m not the best person
in the world at weaving a hat out of straw or vines but I am quite good
at working out how to tie my shoelaces together to climb a tree, and
I think so much survival is about that.
But ultimately,
it’s the other stuff that’s going to keep you going, whether
it’s your family or faith or whatever: that’s really what
matters in survival. I’ve seen so many stories of people who’ve
come through nightmare situations, and it’s all about heart -
the people who get out of it are the ones who are really driven.
As humans we’re
capable of extraordinary things and I think our greatest asset in survival
situations is our brain. People always ask me: “What knife do
you use?” and all of this, but it’s not about that, it’s
about using your brain to think your way out of a situation and then
using your heart to keep you going.
And
finally, is there anything you’re afraid of?
It’s a long list, I always feel really scared sitting in those
helicopters before jumping out to go into it. I think the anticipation
is always worse. It’s fine once I’m in it because it’s
what I’ve been trained to do, it’s what I love, it’s
when I come alive. But beforehand, that anticipation, I get really nervous.
I get really
good briefings from rangers and local experts beforehand and they always
paint such a miserable picture: the crocs or the snakes or ‘watch
out for this or that’. And for me it builds that fear, so I do
get quite scared before them, and I spend quite a lot of my life scared
of these things. But I’ve also learnt how to handle that and to
say that’s part of my job and that’s okay.
Bear
Grylls
Series 1 interview
