Douglas Botting

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Douglas Botting in front of the late biographee Gerald Durrell's library
Douglas Botting in front of the late biographee Gerald Durrell's library

Douglas Botting (b. February 22, 1934) is a noted British explorer, author, biographer and TV presenter and producer. He is well-known for writing biographies of naturalists Gavin Maxwell and Gerald Durrell (the former also being a personal friend). He also was the inspiration behind and writer of the BBC comedy show - The Black Safari, a role reversal comedy show with Africans touring England. He has also featured in numerous other BBC programming, including the highly acclaimed Under London Expedition exploring the London sewerage, as part of the BBC2 nature series The World About Us. He is also well known for writing numerous World War II and early Aviation books for Time Life Books. Botting is also well-known as an explorer having been part of the first balloon flight over Africa.

Contents

[edit] Short Biography

Douglas Botting in Socotra
Douglas Botting in Socotra

Douglas Botting was born in South London. Having witnessed the London Blitz firsthand, he went on to make documentaries and write historical records of World War II and Aviation. Botting got an early flavour of travel when he worked as an infantry subaltern for the King's African Rifles in Kenya, as part of his National Service. He went on to study at Oxford University, during which time he undertook a pioneering exploration of the little-known island of Socotra in the Indian Ocean. His first book - Island of the Dragon's Blood is a telling of this trip.

During Oxford and post-Oxford years, he volunteered and worked in a variety of positions, including as a paramilitary ambulance unit member during the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, as a private tutor to the Crown Prince of Nepal, as a worker in a leper colony in Biafra, and as a trainer for ex-head-hunter tribes undergoing re-training in the Venezuelan rain forest.

However, Botting chose documentary filmmaking, and investigative journalism as his career. As a BBC Special Correspondent to the former USSR he reported news events like the first cosmonauts' homecoming, and Fidel Castro's state visit, and was the first person from West of the Iron Curtain since the Russian Revolution of 1917 to travel voluntarily among the nomadic reindeer tribes of Arctic Siberia and the Gulag. He went on to make documentary films for organizations like National Geographic, BBC, Time Life and Royal Geographical Society.

Among Botting's other occupations is that of writing - Botting wrote a series of Time Life Books on World War II, early aviation and maritime vessels. His foray into investigative journalism include several other World War II books, including the best-selling Nazi Gold: The Story of the World's Greatest Robbery - And Its Aftermath. His back to back biographies of Gavin Maxwell and Gerald Durrell have also earned him praise.

[edit] Explorations

Botting is an accomplished explorer in his own right. He undertook a systematic explorations of Socotra while in college, and was part of the world's first balloon over Africa, the first British balloon to fly across the High Alps, and the first vessel ever to voyage by inland waterways from the Amazon to the Caribbean via the unexplored rain forests of the Casiquiare and Orinoco.

[edit] Bibliography

Cover of Botting's book on his journeys in Siberia
Cover of Botting's book on his journeys in Siberia

NB: In case of country specific first editions, the edition of the author's home country (UK) is chosen.

[edit] Filmography

  • The Forgotten Island (Socotra) (2-part series BBC TV)
  • Festival in Kano (Northern Nigeria) (BBC TV)
  • The Surf Boats of Anomabu (Ghana)
  • Beauty for Ashes (Uzuakoli Leper Colony, Eastern Nigeria) (Gateway Films/Methodist Mission)
  • Kenya Mountain (medical and missionary work in Kenya) (Gateway Films)
  • Balloon Safari (Zanzibar) (4-part series BBC TV)
  • Maytime in Muscovy (BBC TV)
  • Siberia (BBC TV)
  • Greville Wynne Spy Trial (Moscow) (BBC TV News)
  • Shadow in the Clouds (History of Airships) (BBC TV)
  • The Italia Tragedy (BBCTV)
  • Balloon Over the Alps (BBC TV)
  • Three Men in a Balloon (BBC TV)
  • The Great Balloon Race (BBC TV)
  • The Under London Expedition (BBC TV)
  • The Black Safari (BBC TV)
  • The Last Great Journey on Earth (from the Amazon to the Caribbean by hovercraft on inland waterways) (BBC TV)
  • 50 Years of the RAF (BBC TV)
  • Gavin Maxwell (BBC Scotland)
  • Socotra Revisited (comprehensive Hi-8 coverage of Socotra nearly 40 years after Botting's first film report on this island, Mosaic Pictures, London)
  • Sex Appeal (TV documentary series, with Kate Botting)

Other projects include:

  • The Fateful Impact (6-part animation series on the history of environmental change and conservation around the world, with Mosaic Pictures)
  • Toto the Otter (children's TV animation series, with Mosaic Pictures)

[edit] External links

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