Douglas Botting

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Douglas Scott Botting (born 22 February 1934) is an English explorer, author, biographer and TV presenter and producer. He wrote biographies of naturalists Gavin Maxwell and Gerald Durrell (the former also being a personal friend). He was the inspiration behind and writer of the 1972 BBC comedy show The Black Safari,[1] a role-reversal comedy show with Africans touring England. He has also featured in numerous other BBC programming, including Under London Expedition exploring the London sewerage system, as part of the BBC2 nature series The World About Us. He has written numerous World War II and early aviation books for Time Life Books. Botting took part in the first balloon flight over Africa, with Anthony Smith.

Biography

Botting was born in Kingston upon Thames, Surrey, lived in and went to school in Worcester Park. Having witnessed the London Blitz first-hand, 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 English at St Edmund Hall, 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 an account 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, he 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. Botting went on to make documentary films for organisations including National Geographic, BBC, Time Life and Royal Geographical Society.

Among his 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 includes 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.

He is the father of Anna Botting, newsreader. His former wife is the broadcaster and company director Louise Botting, CBE.

Explorations

Botting is an accomplished explorer in his own right. He undertook a systematic explorations of Socotra while in university, 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.

Bibliography

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

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 (BBC TV)
  • 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)

References

  1. ↑ The Black Safari (1972) at the Internet Movie Database

External links

Authority control
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