Gordon Buchanan, cameraman and presenter
Desert Island Discs
BBC
4.4 • 13.7K Ratings
🗓️ 28 December 2025
⏱️ 51 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Gordon Buchanan is a wildlife cameraman and TV presenter. He is best known for the Animal Family & Me series of BBC documentaries in which he gets up close to wild bears, Arctic wolves, elephants and reindeer among other species.
Gordon was brought up in Tobermory on the Isle of Mull where he spent his days exploring the island and developed his lifelong love of the outdoors. In 1988, when he was 17, he met the charismatic wildlife cameraman Nick Gordon who invited him to become his assistant for a project to film primates on the island of Tiwai in Sierra Leone.
Gordon spent 18 months in Sierra Leone working with Nick and after that the two of them worked in West Africa and South America. At 22 Gordon set up on his own – his first job was a year-long assignment to make three half-hour programmes for a 14-part wildlife series called Wild Islands.
In 2001 he made his debut as a presenter on the BBC’s Natural World strand. He was appointed an MBE for services to conservation and wildlife filmmaking in 2020.
Gordon lives in Glasgow with his wife Wendy. They have two children.
DISC ONE: Take Me Home, Country Roads - John Denver DISC TWO: Brandy in the Airidh - Peat & Diesel DISC THREE: Purple Haze – The Jimi Hendrix Experience DISC FOUR: Heart-Shaped Box - Nirvana DISC FIVE: High and Dry - Radiohead DISC SIX: Last Nite - The Strokes DISC SEVEN: Electrical Storm - U2 DISC EIGHT: Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It) - Beyoncé
BOOK CHOICE: Teach Yourself Tap Dancing by Derek Hartley LUXURY ITEM: A mask, snorkel and fins CASTAWAY'S FAVOURITE: High and Dry - Radiohead
Presenter: Lauren Laverne Producer: Paula McGinley
Desert Island Discs has cast many wildlife experts and broadcasters away including Dr George McGavin, Professor Carl Jones, Sir David Attenborough and Dr Jane Goodall. You can hear their programmes if you search through BBC Sounds or our own Desert Island Discs website.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts. |
| 0:07.5 | It's like going into an ice path with your hands as the ice. |
| 0:10.8 | In 2025, we were here for the entertainment. |
| 0:13.8 | Ellis and John. |
| 0:14.9 | Have you not considered just coffee, which is what I do? |
| 0:17.6 | Sightracked with Annie and Nick. |
| 0:19.4 | Stevie Wonder, welcome. I'm pleasure. Loyal Carnar is with us. We want to hearract with Annie and Nick. Stevie Wonder, welcome. |
| 0:21.3 | My pleasure. Loyal Carnery is with us. Want to hear all about Glastonbury. And Celebrity Traitors Uncloaked. Welcome to Uncloaked Island. Oh, thanks for having me, Ed. The winner. I know, still hasn't sunk in. Get the best of 2025 with podcasts on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:42.6 | Hello, I'm Lauren Levern and this is the Desert Island Discs podcast from BBC Radio 4. |
| 0:49.8 | Every week I ask my guests to choose the eight tracks, book and luxury that they'd want to take with them if they were cast away to a desert island. |
| 0:57.2 | For rights reasons, the music's shorter than on the original broadcast, but you can find a version with longer music tracks on BBC Sounds. |
| 1:01.7 | Listeners will also get access to episodes 28 days earlier than everyone else. |
| 1:03.0 | I hope you enjoy listening. Music. My castaway this week is the wildlife broadcaster and filmmaker Gordon Buchanan. |
| 1:31.6 | Viewers will know him for getting up close and personal with his subjects, sneaking up on a |
| 1:36.1 | lioness in the Kalahari desert, breaking down in tears when he became the first person to |
| 1:40.7 | capture footage of tigers in Bhutan, and in an encounter that went viral, keeping his |
| 1:45.9 | cool inside a perspex box while a hungry polar bear spent the best part of an hour trying to break |
| 1:51.6 | into it. His love of the outdoors goes back to his childhood on the Hebridean island of Moll. He was only |
| 1:58.1 | 17 when he got his first break, assisting on a shoot observing chimpanzees |
| 2:02.5 | in the bushlands of Sierra Leone. It was an experience that changed his life. He says, |
| 2:08.0 | I'm lucky that I've found a job that's pretty much a continuation of what I used to do when I was |
| 2:13.2 | nine or ten years old, being out in the wilds, watching the world go by. |
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