Redmond O'Hanlon
Desert Island Discs
BBC
4.3 • 14.3K Ratings
🗓️ 9 March 1997
⏱️ 36 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This week's castaway is an adventurer - the travel writer Redmond O'Hanlon. He's trekked to deserted mountain tops for a glimpse of the rare Borneo rhinoceros, paddled through river swamps to find the Congo's mythical monster, and, deep in the heart of the Amazon rainforest, he stayed with the most violent people on Earth, the Yanomari Indians.
Along the way, he's encountered scorpions, vipers and a giant catfish "which can take your foot off at the ankle", all in search of a story. As he tells Sue Lawley, although his long-suffering companions survive the journey, they vow never to travel with him again - not even to High Wycombe. He's planning a trip to New Guinea - so will Sue agree to accompany him?
Some aspects of this programme may upset some listeners.
[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]
Favourite track: Clarinet Quintet in A: 2nd Movement by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Book: War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy Luxury: A pair of green, insulated Leica binoculars 8 X 20
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, I'm Krestey Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. |
| 0:05.0 | For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music. |
| 0:08.0 | The program was originally broadcast in 1997, and the presenter was Sue Lawley. |
| 0:14.0 | Elements of this program may offend or upset some listeners. My car is My castaway this week is an explorer. He was brought up in blissful |
| 0:38.3 | happiness in a Wiltshire vicarage, but at the age of 14 discovered Charles Darwin and began to abandon his parents religion. |
| 0:46.0 | Indeed Darwin and the spirit of 19th century scientific inquiry explains much of his approach to life. |
| 0:53.0 | If it's remote and dangerous, he enjoys going there, |
| 0:55.8 | the Congo, Borneo, or the Amazon jungle. |
| 0:58.6 | He's nearly died of malaria |
| 1:00.3 | and at the hands of hostile tribesmen. |
| 1:03.0 | His traveling companions never go back for a second expedition. |
| 1:06.0 | They find the experience too frightening or too mad. |
| 1:10.0 | Serious in his pursuit of new discoveries, his sense of humour has never deserted him, |
| 1:15.0 | and he's recounted his adventures in a series of highly entertaining books. |
| 1:19.0 | I'm desperate, he says, to make up for all the time I've spent lying in bed. He is Redmond O'Hanlon. |
| 1:26.8 | That reason though Redmond is not quite as flip as it sounds, is it? I mean you do feel guilty |
| 1:30.8 | about lying in bed and you do become a different person when you get out there? |
| 1:34.0 | Yes, absolutely. |
| 1:36.0 | It's easy traveling in a way. All you have to do is decide you're not going to give up. |
| 1:40.0 | That certainly you're not going to give up for anybody's looking. |
| 1:43.0 | And if you walk eight hours a day trying to keep up the pigments, you become very fit. |
| 1:47.0 | And in fact, very happy, no matter what's going on around you. |
... |
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