Gerald Durrell (Viking)
The conservationist Gerald Durrell’s first dog, Simon, was a coward. To the honey-coloured cocker spaniel, a garden hose was as deadly as a spitting cobra, and he once went into a nervous decline lasting several days after unexpectedly encountering a snowman.
It is nuggets like this that make Durrell’s writings so appealing. Anthropomorphised as his descriptions of animals often are, they combine keen observation with humour in a way that shows just how well he could understand what made animals tick and how to bring them to life on the page.
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This is what made My Family and Other Animals a joyful account of his chaotic early life when his family moved to their new and eventually beloved home in Corfu. The book, chock-full of escapades from a childhood spent with geckos, sea slugs, toads and butterflies, revealed the secret behaviours of animals in a way that captivated and inspired a generation of people to appreciate the natural world. It made a deep impression on me, leading me to my own adventures with hawks, newts, turtles and dolphins and to study zoology.
Durrell wrote some 40 books, including many that were autobiographical. Sadly, he died in 1995, so what should we make of this posthumous work, Myself & Other Animals, released to celebrate the centenary in 2025 of the great conservationist’s birth? Is another book really needed?
This time, it is an unpublished memoir that Durrell started. It includes letters to members of his family as well as extracts from previous books and from an unfinished book on a trip to Australia. Myself & Other Animals paints a picture of a large chunk of Durrell’s life, with snapshots tied together with notes written by his widow, Lee Durrell.
Gerald Durrell's escapades with geckos and toads in his youth inspired a generation to appreciate nature
Reading it makes you feel like an archaeologist uncovering an ancient mosaic. As you leaf through a section, you reveal the colourful sparkle of a new fragment. It isn’t a complete picture, but by the end, you can see enough to feel you know Gerald Durrell just that bit better.
The book ranges from some of the highlights of his early days in India, England and Corfu, to his expeditions across the world to collect animals for zoos, to his battle to create his own zoo, which he finally managed to set up on .
It also talks about his drive to transform zoos from circus-like places where you pay to see exotic captives into more serious venues that encourage education, scientific observation and the breeding of rare animals in environments that are right for each species. There is still a considerable journey to make along that path, but the efforts of Durrell and others have yielded conservation successes, such as the breeding and release of the California condor and the golden lion tamarin.
His letters to his mother are among my favourite bits in the book, rolling back time beautifully to the days before we could all instantly message each other with news.
I especially loved one from an expedition to Cameroon in 1949, sent care of a local branch of Barclays Bank. It reads: “Dear Mother, just a short note to let you know of some interesting things which have happened since I last wrote. Firstly, a thing that will shock you to the core, I was bitten by a snake.” He goes on to explain – in detail that must have been excruciating for his mother, Louisa, to read – of a haphazard race to find a doctor with serum to counteract the potentially lethal venom.
Myself & Other Animals earns its place in the pantheon of Durrell’s books, and will hopefully make more people dig out his back catalogue – of which is another favourite.
But, troublingly, the new memoir also shows how little has really changed. Decades after parts of this book were written, endangered species he mentions are still in trouble and we are still losing the battle to save biodiversity. As Durrell said, “so-called human progress moves at the speed of an Exocet missile, whereas conservation moves at the pace of a donkey and cart”.
It may well be time to strap a green-energy-powered engine to that cart.
Chris Simms is a writer based in Somerset, UK
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