Chris Packham

08/02/2010

Springwatch pin-up and lover of punk, 48

At 16 my major preoccupations were punk rock, kestrels and badgers. Not always in that order. And the badgers fitted in with the punk rock as they were both nocturnal activities. I’d been a swotty young scientist and then at 16 I discovered The Clash’s first album in Woolworths and that changed my life. I was already a guitarist in a band, The Titanic Survivors, and we wrote lyrics about being frustrated and not getting girlfriends.

Finding girlfriends in those days was harder than tracking down badgers to be honest. We were hopeless. We looked like freaks ‘cause we’d pioneered dyeing our hair all different colours and wearing outrageous clothing. Although I eventually triumphed when I met a girl called Joanne whose brother was in a punk band, so she sympathised, and she was also into wildlife.

I was quite a solitary person. I spent a lot of time outside, disappearing until after dark every night. I was very focused. Once I got into something I had to read every book about it in the library, talk about it incessantly and bore my family rigid.

If I met my younger self now I’d like him. I like geeks and enthusiasts, I like their intense passion and I find it easy to respond to that. I might advise him not to alienate himself quite so much from the rest of society though.

I wouldn’t say I had happy teenage years. There’s a huge backlog of dark and depressing poetry loitering in the loft because I felt that the world had rejected me for my obsessive attitude and the way I looked. Even after I left university the world continued to reject me and I found that quite disappointing. I couldn’t trust people
to see beyond the blue spiky hair.

I’d reassure my young self that the things that worry him about himself will lead to great good fortune. When the children’s nature programme The Really Wild Show was looking for presenters they actually liked the very things that had alienated me from everyone else. My career since then has allowed me to continue focusing my interests without pressure to change much. I’d never have dared to believe that that could happen to me, that I’d end up travelling all over the world looking at the animals I used to just look at pictures of. I still pinch myself.

I’d advise my young self to calm down a bit. I used to bite when I shouldn’t have. But I was an angry young man wanting to change the world. I still struggle with some aspects of the media. I have to rub shoulders with people who seem to have forgotten how lucky they are to do what they do. And I’m quite a shy person. To this day I don’t think I’ve ever asked a girl out. I don’t put myself about or like talking about myself.

I don’t have many regrets but there have been times in my life when I could have acted with kindness and I didn’t do it. I’ve always regretted that. I have never claimed to be an expert in the field of women. I’ve been fortunate to have had a series of sympathetic girlfriends and with the benefit of hindsight I see how tolerant they were of me.

www.chrispackham.co.uk

Interview: Jane Graham