I was honoured to receive an award this week at the Daily Mirror’s Animal Hero Awards - a red-carpet event held in central London each year. The combination of an award like this, and ‘Not As Nature Intended’ preparing for print is a wonderful way to round-off my investigative work.
It’s not often an undercover investigator gets to go to an awards ceremony, and it was truly memorable. Primarily because I didn’t just meet a personal hero, the BBC TV presenter and naturalist, Chris Packham, but he also presented me with my Special Recognition Animal Hero award.
I’ve been following Chris since I was a kid. I’d rush home from school to watch him present 'The Really Wild Show' and consumed everything he had to say about bugs, butterflies and buffalos. Suffice to say I learnt a lot and while it didn’t put me in front of a camera, it did put me behind one where I could, in my own way, help tell stories about animals.
Chris has been hugely supportive of my work – I was honoured by his kind words in this clip – and he described the book as ‘remarkable’. I’m delighted to reveal you’ll be able to read his full thoughts on it, as he has written a powerful foreword for ‘Not As Nature Intended’.
The book is due out January 2020.
Thanks all for your support.