When you think of Steve Backshall, animals, risk and crazy adventurers probably spring to mind. He’s one of TV’s best-known wildlife presenters and adventurers and has been delivering wild and wonderful facts about amazing animal species for decades.
With a new stage show set going on tour in Spring 2022 called Ocean, all about the sea and how we can protect it, we caught up with Steve to find out some fun facts about himself and what makes him tick.
Childhood days shaped me
"I was brought up in Bagshot, Surrey where my family had a ramshackle, rundown smallholding which we populated with rescue animals. It was a halcyon childhood and I hope to be able to replicate some of that with my own children (Logan, 3, and twins, son Kit and daughter Bo (corr), 12 months). We are always outdoors, and exploring nature in the countryside around where we live in Berkshire. Recently we had a river canoe trip looking for kingfishers before breakfast. That is how life is with us."
I’m lucky to be alive
"My life has been the weirdest journey, and for so many reasons I am very, very lucky to still be here at all. I’ve had so many near death experiences, half on camera in shows like BBC’s Deadly 60. Even if you only took the things that nearly killed me while the cameras have rolled, I have already used up all my nine lives – and then some. But the worst pain I was ever in was from an insect the size of my little finger called the bullet ant from central and South America. It’s called the bullet ant because one single sting feels like you are being shot!"
Dream your partner’s dreams
"I am so proud of my wife Helen (British rower and two-time Olympic champion Helen Glover. She’s incredible. There is nothing about her that doesn’t make her the right girl for me. I thought I was someone who was focused on physical training until I saw Hels training when she came back to compete in this summer’s Tokyo Olympics.
"Mainly she trained alone until the last couple of months, with no programme, no coach, no physio. To get to a personal best was one of the most incredible feats of human resilience I have ever seen. I love to be romantic."
Sharks are misunderstood!
"I’ve just travelled the world to dispel their reputations as cold-blooded killers for a new Sky documentary series, Shark with Steve Backshall. I’ve been diving and working with sharks for 30 years, and for me, it’s their beauty, the way they move. You can be in the water alongside a 6m-long predator that could eat you, but it won’t. Sharks are the most beautiful, mesmerising, and challenged, group of animals on the planet. I so hope that people will fall in love a little bit with them when they watch my series."
I’m a romantic
"When I was away on Hels’ birthday in June on a filming trip, I left a little present around the house every day I was away and I’d send her a poem that had a hint in it as to where she had to look."
My advice to my 18-year-old self would be...
"It’s all going to work out pretty well. You’ve got nothing to get worried about! And you’re going to marry the woman of your dreams. None of this was lined up when I was 18. It’s all come about through serendipity and different twists and turns of a very strange journey."
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