Readers digest UK TruePDF february 2019

COVER ILLUSTRATION © HELENA PÉREZ GARCÍAFEBRUARY 2019 • 1 16 IT’S A MANN’S WORLD Olly Mann revisits his old university work ENTERTAINMENT RICHARD E GRANT The actor opens up about his

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COVER ILLUSTRATION © HELENA PÉREZ GARCÍA

FEBRUARY 2019 • 1

16 IT’S A MANN’S WORLD

Olly Mann revisits his

old university work

ENTERTAINMENT

RICHARD E GRANT

The actor opens up about his

native Swaziland, friendship

and his love of marijuana

30 “I REMEMBER”:

DR JANE GOODALL

The famous primatologist on

her fascinating life and career

40 WINTER BLUES

How to brighten your mood

during the cold winter months

programme in eastern Russia

strives to protect these majestic

endangered animals

Features

72 BEST OF BRITISH:

BABY IT’S COLD OUTSIDE

Spend Valentine’s Day in one of these enchanting spa retreats

TRAVEL & ADVENTURE

82 GREAT LAKES

Anna Walker discovers the charms and peculiarities of America’s Great Lake region

90 DISCOVERING WARSAW

Delve into the diverse beauty and rich cultural history of Poland’s capital

Each month Reader’s Digest will navigate the woes and wonders of modern life, weighing in

with leading experts on the everyday tools we need to survive and thrive in 2019

To subscribe to Digested for monthly episodes—starting with January’s

“How to Give Up Plastic”—visit readersdigest.co.uk/podcast

or search “Digested” on iTunes

FEBRUARY 2019 • 3

8 Over to You

12 See the World Differently

46 Advice: Susannah Hickling

50 Column: Dr Max Pemberton

100 Column: Andy Webb

FOOD & DRINK

106 Tasty recipes and ideas

from Rachel Walker

HOME & GARDEN

110 Column: Cassie Pryce

FASHION & BEAUTY

114 Column: Lisa Lennkh on how to look your best

116 Beauty ENTERTAINMENT

118 February’s cultural highlights

122 February Fiction: James Walton’s recommended reads

127 Books That Changed

My Life: Jacqueline Wilson TECHNOLOGY

128 Column: Olly Mann FUN & GAMES

130 You Couldn’t Make It Up

COME FROM AWAY Book, Music and Lyrics by Irene Sankoff and David Hein.

Musical Staging by Kelly Devine Directed by Christopher Ashley.

discover the remarkable true story of

a small town that welcomed the world

because we come from everywhere we all

winner! best musical all across north america

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SENIOR EDITORS Anna Walker, Eva Mackevic

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TRUSTED MEDIA BRANDS INC (USA)

President and Chief Executive Officer

Kathryn Hunter returns to the Royal

Shakespeare Company for the first time

since she was a member of the 2010-12

Ensemble, when she played Juliet in

Ben Power’s A Tender Thing, Cleopatra

in Michael Boyd’s production of Antony

and Cleopatra, the Fool in King Lear and

Gavrilo in The Grain Store.

Renowned for portraying a wide variety

of characters through her acclaimed stage

career, Kathryn Hunter has played kings,

queens, men, women and a monkey In this

adaptation of Shakespeare’s dark satire,

Timon of Athens, Kathryn will be playing

the titular role Timon has it all – money,

influence and friends When the money

runs out, she soon finds her influence and

friends have also gone Left alone, she flees Athens to take refuge in the woods, cursing the city she once loved

Kathryn Hunter’s presence on stage portraying strong male characters such

as King Lear (1997) and Richard III (2003) show how her personality and creativity can impact the roles she plays She has also portrayed brilliant women, including Cleopatra and Bernarda Alba (2017), the matriarch of five daughters in an all-female play which explores repression, passion and conformity

She has gained distinction for her physical

performances: as Red Peter in Kafka’s Monkey (a solo piece based on A Report to

an Academy), where she played a monkey

who gives a scientific lecture about her transformation from ape to human.This is a rare chance to see this engaging and versatile actor give ‘a searing central performance’ (**** Guardian) in Shakespeare’s comic tragedy, which asks

us to question our values and consider where happiness really lies.n

THIS WINTER

MORE INFORMATION

Timon of Athens plays in the Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon until 22 February

For more information and a full performance schedule please visit rsc.org.uk

FEBRUARY 2019 • 7

In This Issue…

Last October I embarked on an American road trip of epic proportions, passing through four US states in just one week Though the weather was temperamental (in days the 25°C sunshine of Detroit became snow in Wisconsin) the trip offered an insight into the contrasts of life in the Great Lakes You can read about the journey on p82 The contrast had me thinking about climate change, and the dramatic impact human actions are having on our planet Earlier this year I spoke to Will McCallum, head of oceans at Greenpeace, about

the way excessive plastic consumption is harming mother nature You can hear our conversation on the first episode of our new podcast,

Digested, available through iTunes or at readersdigest.co.uk/podcast

This month I had the pleasure of talking to the talented

Richard E Grant about his new film, Can You Ever Forgive

Me? A number of surprisingly profound topics flowed

out of our relatively brief conversation: from his deep

loyalty when it comes to friendships to his unapologetic

love of marijuana

Read all about our encounter on p20 and then head

over to p118 to check out our five-star review of Can You

Ever Forgive Me?—the incredibly witty, smart, and oddly

heart-warming biopic of celebrity biographer, Lee Israel

Anna

Eva

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Over To You

LETTERS ON THE DECEMBER ISSUE

We pay £50 for Letter of the Month and £30 for all others

For many years my father

received his monthly copy of

Reader’s Digest and I was

fortunate to receive his used

copies every month

Unfortunately, when he

passed away my supply of this

lovely magazine ceased and I

didn’t get around to subscribing

for myself

Then, during a conversation

with a close friend, I mentioned

that I missed all the interesting

things Reader’s Digest produced To my great surprise and pleasure—on my 70th birthday last December—my dear friend gave me a subscription to Reader’s Digest

as a gift I have so enjoyed each and every edition and realised how much I had missed it I’m over the moon that I won’t be missing any more

Pamela Loughrey

Letter of

THE MONTH

8 • FEBRUARY 2019

R E A D E R ’ S D I G E S T

PAPER JOURNEYS

I enjoyed “The Lost Art of Letter

Writing” in the December issue

Although I rarely write letters anymore,

the article reminded me of my school

days in the 1970s when I loved nothing

more than writing to my many

pen-pals around the globe My friend and

I competed against each other to see

who had the most pen friends and

between us we had them in every

continent (except Antarctica of

course) From New Zealand to New

York and South Africa to South Korea I

would eagerly “stalk” the postman

most mornings to see if there were any

letters plopping on to the doormat I

enjoyed stamp collecting too so would

save all the envelopes and carefully

steam off the colourful stamps for my

album My school friend now lives in

Greece and we keep in touch

via email but occasionally take

the time to send a precious

letter to each other

Melanie Lodge, Yorkshire

FEBRUARY 2019 • 9

I totally agree with Lynn Wallis about the very sad fact that hardly anyone these days actually puts pen to paper to write a letter Many years ago when I met my husband’s cousin, we instantly clicked and became so very close it was unbelievable She lived in Buffalo, US, and we had agreed to write to each other I sent her a letter so that it would be waiting on her mat for her when she returned home We didn’t look back, and for years—until she very sadly died—we corresponded regularly I used to start writing again as soon as I posted a letter to her—which were always about eight

or nine pages long Then on receipt

of her reply I would answer what she had written The wrong way around, but she loved it as they were trivial chat letters which

I added to every time I thought of something else to say to her We laughed and cried and confided to each other in our letters and I knew that every two weeks I would have

a nice long chatty missive from

my very dear and much loved lady Oh how I miss her and her priceless letters

Jeannie Holmes, London

O V E R T O Y O U

10 • FEBRUARY 2019

RONAN THE WISE

I agree with Ronan Keating that

children should spend less time on

their phones and more time talking to

each other I remember the first

mobile phones which were the sole

privilege of wealthy businessmen and

those strong enough to carry them

Then they became accessible to

adults in general Then smartphones

arrived and fell into the hands of

teenagers on skateboards, who would

happily read their Facebook messages

as they surfed across several lanes of

fast-moving traffic Even small

children in pushchairs have been seen

using iPhones

So where will it end? Will we see

the day when a baby’s first words are

not “mummy” or “daddy” but

“Cortana” and “Alexa”—just before

uploading their latest breastfeeding

clip to Snapchat? Strange times

David Bennett, Staffordshire

NO MORE LURGIES PLEASE

Your “Common Cold” article was highly informative and very

timely I’ve had my flu jab but protection against colds and

treatment for them is far harder I will be putting the advice to

use, especially the part about taking zinc within 24 hours of

onset to possibly reduce the length of the cold by a day This is

why I love Reader’s Digest, not just entertaining but helpful too

Luke Russell, Yorkshire

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TO HEAR

I totally agree with what Ronan Keating said about the need for people to recycle more This planet is never going to recover if we keep up our wasteful ways Individuals and businesses alike need to take the need to recycle seriously Or, better yet, learn not to be so wasteful in the first place Future generations are going to suffer if we keep destroying our planet

Owen Hollifield, Caerphilly

Many homeowners are using the wealth

tied up in their home to make sweeping

changes to their property If you own

your home, then there’s a good chance

it has gone up in price over the years,

meaning you too could be making the

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of the reasons why over-55 homeowners

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can be rolled up over time and repaid when your house is sold If you want to, this can happen after you and your partner have passed away or moved into long-term care.The two things to remember when releasing equity are: it may reduce the value of your estate in time and could affect your entitlement to means-tested state benefits An adviser can provide you with a personalised illustration, so you can pick plans that allow you to control how your Lifetime Mortgage affects your estate.For your free guide to Lifetime Mortgages, contact Reader’s Digest Equity Release today

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PHOTO: © GETTY IMAGES/FLORIS VAN BREUGEL/NATURE PICTURE LIBRARY 12

See the world

TURN THE PAGE…

14 PHOTO: © GETTY IMAGES/PRAVEEN P.N

According to an old seafarer’s legend, the colourful pebbles found on the beach at Fort Bragg

in California are the solidified tears

of mermaids In reality, however, they’re nothing more than garbage

At the beginning of the 20th century, it was common practice for people to simply dump their refuse in the ocean, among which were many glass bottles, aquariums and other glass debris After years

in the ocean, the glass was broken into smaller pieces and polished

by sand and waves, leaving behind innumerable jewel-like pebbles

…differently

It all started because I wanted a

lever arch file Generally I’m

more of a box file man, but a new

project is generating a significant

stack of notes in sub-categories,

thereby screaming out for a chunky

folder and colourful dividers So, off

I trotted to WHSmith—relishing not

only the distraction, but also the

opportunity to snap up a discounted

Mary Berry book and two-for-one

pack of Sharpies—when suddenly I

remembered: Mum’s attic

Stored away in her ceiling rafters

are a dozen lever arch files, most

embellished with a gold University of

Oxford logo, containing notes from

my undergraduate degree When

I shoved them up there in 2002, I

I T ’ S A M A N N ’ S W O R L D

thought they might be required for

my forthcoming literary career; surely, it would only be a matter of months before I again had cause to reference my notes on Chaucerian dialect and the contribution of immigration to mutual intelligibility (Instead, my first graduate job was researching a show for ITV about gobby estate agents)

But I had also wanted to keep the folders themselves In the student’s union shop I had shelled out an extra

£1 per folder—the equivalent of a pint of Strongbow in the college bar—to get ones emblazoned with the university logo I’d been the first

in my family to go to university, and

I was proud to get into Oxford, of all places I wanted to milk the opportunity for all it was worth: the world-class tutorials, the student media scene, and, yes, the chance to mince around town clutching at stationary inscribed in Latin

For roughly three years, Mum’s

Olly Mann goes stationery shopping but finds himself

on an unexpected trip down memory lane instead…

Stash In

The Attic

Olly Mann presents

Four Thought for

BBC Radio 4, and the award-winning

podcasts The Modern

Mann and Answer

Me This!

16 • FEBRUARY 2019

I T ’ S A M A N N ’ S W O R L D

sandwiched between some faded Halloween decorations and a upside-down Betamax, there it was: my hoard of folders

I’d envisaged it being pretty straightforward to chuck out the scribbles contained therein It is painfully obvious I will never again require my teenage thoughts on the travel diaries of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu But, as soon as I opened

up a folder, to rip out the pages, I found myself scanning the content You know, just to be sure

Hours flew by Nostalgia, I guess you’d call it I’d forgotten so much! Not only the literature I had studied

—did I really write three-thousand

words on Tennyson’s portrayal of fruit cake? How is that possible?—but the style and tone of my undergraduate writings, too: the footnotes I had to tediously double-check after each draft; the

anonymised candidate number I was required to print in the header of my thesis; the double-spaced font that (I believed) gave my work the

impression of intellectualism… but also, happily, doubled my page count

so it appeared that I’d done more work than I actually had

Reappraising the red marks in the margins, I reflected that the tutor who made them—who seemed scarily omnipotent at the time—was

in fact younger than I am now There was one essay in particular, about Harold Pinter’s presentation of the

been hassling me to remove my

dusty stash of Oxford merch from her

attic I’ve always refused, because

a) she and her house guests can’t see

what’s up there anyway, so what does

it matter, and b) it’s a really old

house that’s pretty draughty in

winter, so dumping piles of

paperwork up there is basically

providing her with insulation, so

really she should thank me.

But, finding myself in need of a

lever arch file, it seemed silly to go

and buy one As I ventured into

Mum’s attic, an Aladdin’s cave of

junk revealed itself: a broken bicycle

pump, a moth-eaten Santa outfit, 3D

glasses for a Sega Master System,

gravel for a goldfish bowl, some

counterfeit Louis Vuitton holdalls

It was hard to focus on the prize But,

right at the end of the loft,

R E A D E R ’ S D I G E S T

past, that he picked apart like a

carcass But, considering his

comments now—some phrases I’d

employed were too journalistic,

some points I’d made were

tautologous—they all seemed

entirely fair At the time, I’d thought

he was being deliberately harsh on

me, because I hadn’t shown up to all

his classes But now I realised: if he

had really wanted to punish me, he

FEBRUARY 2019 • 19

“As I ventured into Mum’s

attic, an Aladdin’s cave of

junk revealed itself: a

bicycle pump, a

moth-eaten Santa outfit, gravel

for a goldfish bowl…”

wouldn’t have bothered reading my essay at all He was just trying to kick

me up the bum It worked

I thought back to my classmates who, the moment they graduated, threw their notes in the bin (recycling didn’t really exist in 2002),

or, in one flamboyant example, built them into a massive bonfire I was glad to have a moment to look again

on its spine, and sits proudly on my office shelf I probably won’t open it for another couple of decades But I suspect the fifty-something me will

be pleased I held on to it

MOTION PICTURE MORONS

Reddit users claim some of our favourite films would have been a lot shorter

if the protagonists had more brain cells…

The Little Mermaid: “If Ariel could write, why didn’t she just write the Prince a note?”Jurassic Park: “If John Hammond had just shelled out a bit more money for

his IT department…”

Gremlins: “I can’t help but think the instructions were very clear.”

Back to the Future II: ‘Hey Marty, your future kid is an idiot Fortunately, you have 30 years to change the outcome Maybe consider moving to a different town, or sending him to a private school, or something?’ The end.Jingle All the Way: “Had Arnie just purchased the Turbo-Man toy when his wife

asked in October, the movie wouldn’t exist.”

Known for his flamboyant performances in Withnail and I,

Downton Abbey and Francis Ford Coppola’s Dracula, actor

Richard E Grant talks to Eva Mackevic about friendship,

marijuana, and why he finds it so hard to forgive

20

In a quiet suite of Claridge’s

hotel my blood runs cold as

I begin my conversation with

Richard E Grant I gather from the

get-go that the actor can be very

picky about the things he shares,

careful not to reveal too much

about himself or tread on any risky

territory—a trait which makes him

both fantastically charming and

frustratingly impenetrable

We’re here to talk about his new

film, Can You Ever Forgive Me? which

tells the true story of the American

celebrity biographer, Lee Israel,

played by Melissa McCarthy When

Israel’s writing career took a turn

for the worse, leaving her penniless,

a cash-strapped British expat who joined Israel in the pursuit of this risky illegal scheme

“There was very little to go on [in terms of research], other than that Jack died at the age of 47 in 1994; had a little cigarette holder that he thought would stop him from getting lung cancer, as he was a chain smoker; and that he had been in jail for two years for holding a knife to a taxi driver’s throat, arguing about a

ENTERTAINMENT

fare.” Richard tells me about the role

in his mellifluous, plummy voice

Hock was also an out-of-control

but extremely charismatic alcoholic

which is very reminiscent of arguably

Richard’s most famous character,

Withnail, I observe

“I suppose if you play somebody

who’s as alcoholic, verbal and

vitriolic as Withnail, inevitably

there’s going to be an overlap into

this kind of personality, but Jack

Hock wanted to be liked, he was

like a Labrador who would lick

people into submission A character

like Withnail would not have given

someone as spiky and misanthropic

as Lee Israel the time of day.”

JACK HOCK DID THOUGH, and the

result was a deep, sincere friendship

that both found solace in, despite the constant verbal sparring and extortionate pride When I ask Richard what he’s like as a friend himself, he somewhat unsurprisingly admits that he’s quite rigid and very loyal when it comes to his personal relationships Having moved to London in 1982, he still remains in touch with school friends from his native Swaziland

“I place enormous value on friendships I think that—unlike being married, or blood related—

they’re this invisible thing that you have to nurture I was incredibly lonely when I first moved to London,

so the friendships that I formed in the first year really sustained me

I’m a loyal dog by nature so once I’m friends with somebody, that’s it

R E A D E R ’ S D I G E S T

FEBRUARY 2019 • 23

And, equally, if they betray me…” he pauses for a moment “…I wish

I could say I was more forgiving

I understand rationally I should

be, but emotionally I’m incapable

of that.”

Richard tells me about a time

he was inadvertently betrayed by a friend of 30 years, who accidentally copied him into an unsavoury email “It’s still stuff that I’ve never forgotten and that ended that friendship,” the actor admits

THE CONVERSATION TURNS TO our shared experience as immigrants in London and what it was like to move our whole lives to a different part of the world

“Swaziland is physically beautiful

We had a pool, a beautiful garden, an

With Melissa

McCarthy in Can You

Ever Forgive Me?

(Top left); Withnail is

one of Richard’s most

iconic roles to date

24 • FEBRUARY 2019

I N T E R V I E W : R I C H A R D E G R A N T

amazing view down a valley that you

could see from 40 miles, monkeys

at the bottom of the garden—all the

things that you just take for granted

when you grow up there It’s rural

and dramatic compared to the urban

landscape of London which is flat

as a pancake It’s only when you go

away you realise that it was exotic in

retrospect, whereas at the time, that

was your norm

“Rudyard Kipling said, ‘What do

they know of England, who only

England know?’ and it’s that theme

of, only when you go away and go

back again, are you able to look with

fresh eyes at where and how you

grew up,” he muses

If there’s one thing we agree

on, it’s that neither of us would

ever permanently return to

our homeland

“I can’t earn a living there,”

says Richard “But it’s very nice

to go to The whole life that I live

in England and America, which is show business, is of absolutely no consequence or importance when

I go home And it’s a completely different but refreshing reality.”

“Perhaps a nice place to retire one day?” I ask

“Oh, I never want to retire!” he laughs “I love my job too much Fortunately, it’s a job where you can—if you’re lucky enough—carry

on playing parts according to your age until they just don’t want to see your face anymore.”

RICHARD HOPES IT WON’T HAPPEN

any time soon though, as the list

of directors he’d like to work with (From Spielberg to Tarantino, via Damien Chazelle) is “as long as his arm.” Not that he’s complaining,

Fortunately, I have a job where

you can—if you’re lucky enough— carry on playing parts until

they just don’t want to see

“

R E A D E R ’ S D I G E S T

FEBRUARY 2019 • 25

though: “I’ve worked with Altman,

Scorsese, Coppola, Jane Campion,

Philip Kauffman, now Marielle

Heller… I’ve had a good run but you

know, there’s always somebody new

who comes up with an idea or a

way of working that is tantalising

and interesting.”

Are there any roles that he would

straight up reject, I wonder?

“Like, would I play a child killer?”

he laughs “I hope not But the

moment you say that, it comes back

to haunt you I’m sure if you asked

Anthony Hopkins when he was doing

Shakespeare at the National Theatre,

‘Would you ever have played a

serial killer who ate people?’ he’d

26 • FEBRUARY 2019

I N T E R V I E W : R I C H A R D E G R A N T

go, ‘Maybe not,’ but he portrayed [Hannibal Lecter] brilliantly so I think it’s a kind of trap Never say never, to quote James Bond.”

BY THIS POINT, RICHARD HAS LET

his guard down, and the chilly interview has turned into a mellow chat as we find ourselves giggling about his allergy to alcohol

initially-“I’ve only been drunk once; I managed to keep alcohol down for nine minutes and then I was violently ill for 25 hours,” he tells me

As someone who’s intolerant to booze though, he’s certainly played a lot of characters with substance abuse problems I ask him what his secret is

FEBRUARY 2019 • 27

“Well, what I’ve observed that’s so acute in drunken behaviour is that the effort that they make to appear

not drunk and to get across a room

in a straight line thinking that they’re managing it—that in itself is a clue

to how to do it You just try and hope that other people believe that you are,” he says

When I wonder aloud whether he has indulged in any other vices to make up for his abstinence, Richard gets a bit giddy: “Oh yeah, all of them! I tried every drug under the sun in my youth You wean yourself off that experimental time of your life Your social life changes when you get more responsibilities I still smoke dope but that’s as much as I

do now I love marijuana—it makes

me laugh,” he smiles

AS OUR CONVERSATION COMES

to an end, my initial nerves are a distant memory With a smile, I realise that when Richard described the character of Jack Hock to me earlier, he could also have been easily describing himself: “It’s like dealing with somebody who always has a long face When you finally elicit a smile out of them, the reward seems much greater than it would’ve been with somebody who’s permanently happy.”

Can You Ever Forgive Me? is out in cinemas across the UK on February 1 Read our review on p118

I’ve only been

drunk once;

I managed to

keep the alcohol

down for nine

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…BEING BOUGHT A TOY CHIMP

AS A TODDLER. It was made to mark

the first chimp born at the London

Zoo, called Jubilee (right) People

said it would give me nightmares,

but he became my favourite toy I

took him everywhere I still have him

now, though he’s in his eighties, and

rather delicate, so he doesn’t travel

…MY MOTHER SUPPORTED MY

AMBITION TO WORK WITH

ANIMALS. She was the only one who

didn’t laugh at my ridiculous dream

of going to Africa She said I’d have to work very hard, take advantage of all opportunities, and never give up

That’s the message I tell young people around the world, particularly in disadvantaged communities I wish she was alive to know many people have told me that I taught them that because I did it, they could too

…RUSTY, A BLACK MONGREL, TAUGHT ME ANIMALS HAVE PERSONALITIES AND FEELINGS

I had other pets like guinea pigs and

ENTERTAINMENT

Renowned primatologist and anthropologist, Dame

Jane Goodall, 84, is the world’s foremost expert on

chimpanzees and an environmental activist

32 • FEBRUARY 2019

(Left); Jane poses with her beloved dog Rusty in 1954 (Above and opposite); In her early days at Gombe Jane spent hours sat on high peaks, searching the forest for chimpstortoises, and I knew they all had

personalities, but Rusty was special

He was highly intelligent, and I

thought of him when academics later

told me that only humans have

personalities, minds and emotions

…MY FIRST TRIP TO AFRICA IN

1957 A friend invited me to her

family’s farm in Kenya There were no

tourist planes then, so I went by sea

It was the time of the Suez Crisis so

the ship went all round the Cape and

the first town I set foot in was Cape

Town It was beautiful but had

“Whites Only” signs everywhere,

which was horrible On landing at Mombasa, a train took me past herds

of wildebeest, which you don’t see now Then, as a car drove me up towards the farm an aardvark passed ahead of us There was a giraffe at the side of the road, looking down with those long, curly lashes The first morning when I woke up, outside my very own window were the fresh paw prints of a leopard I’d finally arrived

in the Africa of my dreams

…LOUIS LEAKEY GAVE ME MY FIRST WORK IN AFRICA There wasn’t enough money for me to © THE J

attend university, but I

went on a secretarial

course A friend said that

if I wanted to work with

animals in Africa

I should contact Leakey,

a distinguished

palaeontologist By

chance he needed a secretary, and

allowed me to accompany him, his

wife and one other English girl,

Gillian, on his annual fossil hunting

trip to the Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania

…BEING FOLLOWED BY A LION.

After each day’s work, Gillian and I

were allowed to go out on the African

plains in the evening One time we

looked round and a young male lion

was following us Scary, but exciting

Gillian said we should head down

into the forest, but I said we must stay

in the open, because in the thickets

he’d know where we were, but we

wouldn’t know where he was The

lion eventually gave up, and Leakey

told me I’d done the right thing I think that convinced him to give

me the job of studying wild chimpanzees

…LEAKEY THOUGHT WOMEN MADE THE BEST OBSERVERS He also wanted a mind uncluttered by reductionist scientific thinking He felt that learning about our closest relatives, the chimpanzees, would help him better understand the behaviour of the Stone Age humans whose fossils he was digging up

…DAVID GREYBEARD SAVED MY OBSERVATION PROJECT. We only had six months’ funding to begin with, and when I first arrived at the Gombe Stream Reserve, the chimps just ran away They’d never seen a white ape before It wasn’t until July 14, 1960, an

“In Cape Town

there were signs

34 • FEBRUARY 2019

event now commemorated

annually as World

Chimpanzee Day, that the

chimp I’d named David

Greybeard became the first

one to lose his fear of me,

enabling me to observe him

making tools to catch

termites If you saw that today, it

wouldn’t be remarkable We know

lots of animals use tools, but then it

was thought that only humans did it

…NAMING THE CHIMPS WAS

DEEMED CONTROVERSIAL IN

THE SCIENTIFIC COMMUNITY

But I couldn’t have imagined calling a

chimp by a number When the proof

came back for my first scientific paper

on nature—when I finally got a

chance to do a PhD—all my “he’s”,

“she’s” and “who’s” were crossed out

for “it” and “which.” I was furious

I reinstated them all and refused to

back down And I won the argument

(L-R); Young Jane bonds with a baby chimp; With an orphan chimp in Kenya; Observing a chimpanzee shortly after release from an orphan sanctuary;

Binoculars are her favourite tool

…MEETING HUGO VAN LAWICK.

He’d come to film and photograph me

on behalf of National Geographic

This took the story of Jane and the chimps into the outside world We fell

in love and married in 1964 We set

up the Gombe Stream Research Centre, the first of its type, which is still going strong today and discovering new things about chimps Sadly, Hugo’s photography took him

to the Serengeti while I remained at Gombe, and we drifted apart We divorced amicably in 1974

…OUR SON “GRUB” DIDN’T LIKE CHIMPS. He knew they could eat him Chimps have been known to © THE J

take human babies Today, he finds

them more interesting, but he still

doesn’t like them

…“FEMINISTS” CRITICISED ME.

It annoys me that people despise

women if they stop their career to

look after children Chimps teach us

that, for the first two years of life, it’s

really important to have a nurturing

three or four people who are stable,

supportive, and always there It

doesn’t have to be the biological

mother But although I never saw

myself as a feminist per se, I support

women’s rights

My favourite line came from the

chief of a South American tribe, which

he described as an eagle with one wing male, the other female Only when the two wings are equal will the tribe fly

…EXPERIENCING A SPIRITUAL AWAKENING IN THE CATHEDRAL OF NOTRE- DAME, PARIS. I walked in one morning just as the sun was coming through the great rose window A couple were getting married and the

organist was playing Toccata and

Fugue It just hit me I thought of all

the people who’d built the cathedral, who’d worshipped there, and of Bach who’d created that music The world couldn’t have happened by chance Interestingly, although mainstream science doesn’t support the idea of God, cutting edge scientists are increasingly backing the idea of the intelligent design of the universe

…GOING THROUGH A BLEAK PERIOD It was difficult when my second husband, Derek Bryceson,

FEBRUARY 2019 • 35

R E A D E R ’ S D I G E S T

36 • FEBRUARY 2019

director of the Tanzania

National Parks, died in

1992 It didn’t shake my

faith, but I was grieving, wanting to be

out in the forest For me, it’s the most

healing, rewarding place, where you

realise that everything is connected,

and that every single species has a

role to play

…MY PRIORITIES CHANGED

AFTER THE PUBLICATION OF MY

BOOK, THE CHIMPANZEES OF

GOMBE. On the back of that,

published in 1986, I helped organise a

conference in Chicago on the subject

I walked into it as a scientist, and left

as an activist I’d been so isolated in

Gombe but getting together with

others who were studying chimps

elsewhere in Africa was a shock Each

of us had the same stories, of falling

chimpanzee numbers, the loss of the

forest cover they depend upon, the growth of commercial hunting, the bush meat trade, the shooting of mothers to steal baby chimps, and the training of them for entertainment It was a shocking insight

…FLYING OVER GOMBE and realising that poverty was causing Africans to destroy their own environment Gombe was once part of a great equatorial forest belt from East Africa to the West African coast, but

by 1994 it was an island

of forest surrounded by bare hills There are more people than the land can support, and they’re too poor to buy food from elsewhere so they cut down trees for new farmland Tanzania now only has about 2,000 chimps left, and the population across Africa is about 300,000 A century ago it was close to 2 million Through my Jane Goodall Institute for Wildlife Research, Education and Conservation, we run a community programme that helps villages

to grow plants and timber, allowing deforested areas to regenerate naturally

…SCHOOL CHILDREN AND STUDENTS TELLING ME WE’D COMPROMISED THEIR FUTURE,

making them feel angry and © THE J

R E A D E R ’ S D I G E S T

was five years old My sister lives there now with her daughter’s family, and in between tours it is my home,

my roots and my stability

I am travelling for 300 days a year I don’t like it I have no zest for travel, sitting in airport lounges and hotels, but how else can I get the message across? And I know that my words have an impact

A man recently approached me after I had given a lecture in Hong Kong and told me that he’d intended

to buy a sports car, but had given up the idea and was giving the money to Roots and Shoots instead

It was Gandhi who famously said the planet could provide enough for human need, but not enough for human greed

As told to Jack Watkins

For more details or to support Jane Goodall’s work, visit janegoodall.org.uk, and rootsandshoots.org.uk

FEBRUARY 2019 • 37

depressed And [our generation] has

There’s a saying, “we haven’t

inherited this planet from our parents,

it’s borrowed from our children” But

we’ve been stealing, and we are still

stealing We have a tiny, tiny window

of time to do something about it, but

if our youth lose hope, that’s it

…A CHAT WITH TEENAGERS IN

DAR-ES-SALAAM INSPIRED ME TO

SET UP ROOTS AND SHOOTS It’s

now in 80 countries, from nurseries to

universities and everything in

between The programme’s message

is that every individual can make a

positive impact on the environment,

animals and people every day It’s

very strong in China, India and North

America, and we are in 1,700 school

in Britain But we are short of funds

and need all the support we can get

…CLIMBING THE BEECH TREES AT

MY BOURNEMOUTH HOME The

house has been in the family since I

“It annoys me that people despise women if they stop working

to look after their children”