Then in the nineties the curve began to rise and I found my rhythm again in my new habitat. I'd served my twenty-year apprenticeship it seemed, for the documentary & natural history assignments that I'd long felt were 'my real go' at last began to flow.
A two year dream-come-true on Olivia Newton-John's Wild Life series for Discovery Channel in the mid-nineties was my crowning moment. Forty-two stories around the planet satisfied a childhood fantasy to see the world. The Arctic, India, Namibia; polar bear & cobra, orangutan & Inuit; desert, rainforest & tundra. Exotic adventure once found only in Golden Books & National Geographic magazines sprang to life.
I convinced myself it was meant to happen, for the very first stories assigned — Gibraltar's Barbary Apes & Pascual's Donkeys in Spain — led me to discover the Spanish origin of the Lomas species.
A chance rendezvous with concierge Garcia del Lomas on Spain's Costa Del Sol peeled back centuries to the days of Lord Nelson's battles with the Spanish Armada. Small towns like Los Lomas, and Lomas meaning 'foothills' in the native tongue, strengthened his claims. Garcia's personal history lesson aroused emotion & pride for family in me till then unknown: reunion with my ancestral past gave meaning to where I'd been and where I was going.
All came together, was destiny unavoidable ...
[ TO BE CONTINUED ... ]
