Simon Reeve: From pre-teen petrol bombs to mountain-top revelations
Taking a chance and turning left instead of right can lead us down new paths – to discover more about the wild world around us, according to TV presenter, author and explorer Simon Reeve as he prepares to get back on the road.
Written by Guest Author
Getting into nature
Simon’s own experiences of growing up in London, escaping from a mental health crisis to Scotland and finding his feet – quite literally – see him well placed to suggest ways others can discover more personal wild moments.
He hopes his latest tour To The Ends Of The Earth, will encourage people to take a few more risks and find the value in nature, wherever it may be.
“I loved getting out there and being with a live audience on my last tour, and that was a big part of wanting to do another,” Simon said. “But the real motivation was that I was getting a bit depressed about the state of the world and how digital our lives were becoming, and I want to remind audiences there’s a really beautiful, wild world out there for us to love and experience, individually and collectively.”
“My theme for the tour is ‘wild places exist and we need to find them’. There’s not much in life that I’m sure about, but I am sure about this. The value of getting into nature is very simple, whether it’s a local park, a remote national park, or somewhere elsewhere in a far-flung corner of Planet Earth. It all counts.”
Simon, whose travels and award-winning TV series have taken him to more than 130 countries, across jungles, deserts, mountains and oceans, acknowledges many people reconnected with their local world in recent times due to the COVID-19 pandemic and is keen to remind us not to forget those moments.“Millions of people reassessed their lives during the pandemic, and while yes it was hellish in a lot of ways, it gave people time and space to reconnect with their local area,” he said.
“We were forced to stay close to home, and there is something powerful in re-discovering what is around you, seeing it with fresh eyes. Even by just turning left instead of right on a walk or run, you can have a completely new experience, adding a heightened sense of value to your love of the place.”
A mental health tonic
On his theatre tour, Simon also talks about the craziest places he’s been, the adventures he’s had, and the amazing people he’s met. “I’m hoping to inspire people with my tales, and I’m planning to tell some stories I’ve never shared before, about my adventures and my background.”
Simon followed a far-from-conventional route to a life in the spotlight. Making petrol bombs at 11, on the brink of suicide at age 16, and chancing upon a job as a newspaper post-boy, Simon is all too aware that while he now speaks from a position of privilege, it wasn’t always the case.
“I don’t come from an outdoorsy, wild background,” he explains. “I grew up in inner-city London, didn’t get on a plane until I was working as an adult, and that was only to Newcastle. The great outdoors started as a mental health tonic for me. One of my real formative experiences as a lad – I was on the dole, very depressed, stood on a motorway bridge – was when I went wild to Scotland on my own and found a shed-load of physical self-confidence, exploring and discovering and feeling the grass under my feet. That experience, getting on a train to Scotland, climbing in Glencoe in jeans and trainers – I shouldn’t have made it up and back safely, but I did. The most useful mental health tonic I had in the darkest time of my life was to put one foot in front of the other and keep moving, and I’ve found that ever since. That simple action provides help, answers, and solutions to almost everything I come up against. The simple act of moving, ideally in Mother Nature, gives you self-respect, mental openness and clears the head. And when I found that and realised the value, I knew I wanted to share that knowledge with others.”
What’s our impact?
Besides sharing the many benefits of getting into the great outdoors on his theatre tour, Simon also plans to share his experience of nature in a broader sense – talking about ecosystems around the world and the impact mankind has had on the planet.
“I’ve travelled through so many completely different environments and am looking forward to sharing some of that… What it’s like to be in the desert, in the mountains, the coldest places on the planet, and all the other extreme locations I’ve visited. In terms of learning about myself and the world around us, almost everywhere I’ve visited has taught me something. But some specific people have opened a page in a book at a particular time or shone a light on something that has surprised me. A big lesson for me has been staying with people [in remote communities] who take what they need from Mother Nature, not what they want. Their footprint is so small and delicate that their impact on the world is very different from our own. I’ll talk about some of those remote communities on my tour – I won’t romanticise their lives, and often there is comparative poverty, but it’s worth being reminded of those ways of living.
“Nobody who travels should be unaware of the impact of our journeys or our lives on Mother Nature. Everywhere I go, the impact of the modern world is visible, or the consequences of burning fossil fuels, plastic pollution etc. It’s seen all around the planet; there’s plastic at the deepest depths of the oceans and the top of the tallest mountains. As humans we’ve left our mark on the world and that can’t be easily wiped out. It’s an impact that future generations will be shaking their heads at on our behalf. But we can certainly still protect and save beautiful and diverse life on the planet. It’s one of the greatest challenges we face and we need to do it by changing our behaviour, managing what we have got, and making more sustainable choices.”
A new generation
While he’s travelled the world in the years since scaling Glencoe as a trainer-wearing teen, Simon hasn’t – yet – been back to the summit where he reassessed his life and found a new verve. And he hopes to be joined by a special companion when he gets around to a future return trip.
“In a way, Glencoe is the place where it all began for me. I want to go back there, and soon, with my son. He’s 12 now and doing so much better at life than I was at that age… He’s not off making petrol bombs! It’s a challenge bringing up kids in today’s world. We want to keep them safe, but we want them to flap their wings and fly as well. So we are all looking for ways to get them outdoors to discover themselves and take risks which can be uncomfortable and scary. Balancing reality and screens is a huge issue for parents, whether you’re in a town or the countryside. It is in our family too, as we try to balance what’s fair and right. I don’t want my son to miss out on playing screen games with his mates, but I also want him to have meaningful experiences away from all that. Kids also need to be bored so they find their ideas and games. I know, for me, those moments when you’re on your own and away from screens are when I get time to think and dream.”
With recent destinations including Indonesia, Patagonia and the Kalahari Desert, what is it that Simon dreams about?“Places like that are reminders that there are still pristine, beautiful environments that deserve and need to be protected,” he says.
Simon wants to remind us that the greatest benefit of travelling and going on adventures is the chance to meet other people.
“Hand in hand with that dream of supporting Mother Nature, my journeys are about people and that’s what viewers remember and talk to me about. I love that. There are eight billion human beings on his planet – that’s eight billion different stories to be told. Travel can never be boring when you’re connecting with people.”
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