3 days ago
Ben Fogle makes the perfect guest - he never asks awkward questions! CHRISTOPHER STEVENS reviews New Lives In The Wild
Chatting to Ben Fogle in the Kalahari desert, the Norwegian conservationist and former teenage model Aleks Orbeck made an extraordinary claim.
Until the 1970s, she said, the San tribespeople — once known as Bushmen — were not only persecuted but even hunted for sport: 'They were classified as animals. We found a hunting brochure.'
This truly shocking statement left Ben grasping for words. 'You could actually hunt a human being?' he managed to ask.
'Yeah, yeah,' she replied.
If that's true, it's one of the most appalling and disgusting revelations imaginable. But that's the question — is it true? I have no doubt Aleks, who has dedicated her life to preserving the San culture, believes what she says. My doubts are simply that, as far as I'm aware, this incendiary claim has never been aired before, despite a wealth of books and films about these hunter-gatherer tribes.
The frustrating aspect of New Lives In The Wild, which returns for its 20th series, is that Ben rarely probes too deeply. His kindness and sympathetic charm win him friends wherever he travels, often among people who are instinctively suspicious of strangers — especially strangers accompanied by TV crews.
But his easy-going diffidence makes it difficult for him to challenge what he's told. And that means he sometimes fails to uncover all the facts.
The frustrating aspect of New Lives In The Wild, which returns for its 20th series, is that Ben rarely probes too deeply
After a few days helping Aleks at her desert outpost and school, the Wisdom Academy, he coaxed her into talking about her recent marriage and how she met her husband, Ralph. Ben visited the lavish safari camp Ralph runs for wealthy tourists, marvelling at its palatial tents furnished with opulent divans and ornaments that appeared to be straight from Harrods.
This was a far cry from the wooden huts of Aleks's camp, fenced in with an enclosure of thorny branches to keep marauding lions out. Clearly she and her husband have different ideas about life in the Kalahari, though Aleks recognises the need for tourism. 'It's a lot more sustainable than mining,' she said. 'Tourism should pay for nature. It's a renewable energy.'
But Ben didn't ask whether Aleks, at 34, hoped to start a family, now that she's married. Perhaps because that question is now regarded as somewhat politically incorrect (for reasons I don't begin to understand), the subject was not broached.
He missed a story. According to her posts on Instagram, Aleks is currently expecting a baby.
We did learn about her previous life, leaving Oslo to join the Ford modelling agency in New York, aged 14. 'I didn't know it was going to be so lonely,' she said, with a shudder. After she was robbed at gunpoint, she fled to Africa, and has never left. The Kalahari felt like home.
'Some of us weren't born where we feel we belong,' Ben agreed. Aleks wasn't, but it seems her baby will be.
