Phil Drabble; 'One Man and His Dog' presenter
Hyfler/Rosner
'One Man and His Dog' presenter
The Independent
01 August 2007
Anthony Hayward
Phil Percy Cooper Drabble, naturalist, writer and broadcaster: born
Bloxwich, Staffordshire 14 May 1914; OBE 1993; married 1939 Jess
Thomas (died 2006); died Abbots Bromley, Staffordshire 29 July 2007.
A countryman through and through, the writer and naturalist Phil
Drabble shared his love of nature and rural ways in dozens of books
but, most famously, as the original presenter of One Man and His Dog,
which provided the spectacle of working sheepdogs demonstrating their
skills at rounding up flocks in lush, green fields and meadows, moving
them around fences, gates and enclosures while following their
handlers' whistles and commands.
The television series initially concerned BBC bosses, who wondered
whether viewers, especially those who lived in cities, would
understand the concept of sheepdog trials. They need not have been
worried, for Drabble - who became familiar in his check tweed suit and
flat cap - was the master at transporting the audience into his world.
Setting the scene in the first programme, in 1976, he explained that a
dog's education begins with learning to obey its master's voice and
continued:
When he gets past the kindergarten stage, the next thing he has to do
is learn to obey the whistle, because the sound of a whistle carries
so much further, over fells and over hilltops, than the sound of the
human voice.
The series was the brainchild of the producer Philip Gilbert, who took
the idea to Aubrey Singer, the controller of BBC2, after seeing
sheepdog trials at an agricultural show in Northumberland. It was
accepted and Gilbert hired Eric Halsall, an agricultural journalist,
as commentator. Keen to have a genuine countryman as the presenter,
rather than an established broadcaster, Gilbert approached Drabble, a
long-time writer on rural matters, who was reluctant, feeling that the
trials might make "boring" television. But he was won over by the
enthusiasm of Halsall and Gilbert's promise of stunning backdrops for
every programme.
Soon, more than three million viewers were tuning in regularly - and
that figure rose to eight million within a decade. Drabble continued
to present One Man and His Dog until 1993, when, approaching 80, he
retired and handed over to Robin Page. But loyal viewers continued to
tune in and, when the programme was threatened with the axe six years
later, the BBC reconsidered and has continued to make specials.
"One Man and His Dog is a refreshing change from the incessant sex,
violence and politics spewed over our television screens," was
Drabble's explanation of its success. "Nice people obviously enjoy it
because it is wholesome and feeds their nostalgia for the deep values
of true country folk, for a life in which craftsmanship has not yet
been obliterated by the wonders of our technological revolution."
Born in the Staffordshire village of Bloxwich in 1914, shortly before
the outbreak of the First World War, Drabble grew up to despise the
scars left by the industrial revolution on England and, in particular,
his beloved Black Country, bemoaning the replacement of craftsmen by
machines, and the encroachment of roads, railways and canals on the
countryside.
His father, a GP, was assistant to the local family doctor, visiting
his patients on a motorcycle while his superior was driven by a groom
in a horse-drawn dog-cart. Drabble's memories of childhood included
acres of derelict wasteland near his home, where he discovered newts,
butterflies, moths, birds and beetles, and the beginnings of a love
for the countryside that would inspire his later work and campaigns.
"It may have been an unlikely habitat for a young naturalist," he
wrote in his 1991 autobiography, A Voice in the Wilderness, "but an
instinctive love of wildlife possessed my soul as a child."
But the biggest impact on Drabble's young life came with the sudden
death of his mother when he was nine and at prep school in the
Birmingham suburb of Edgbaston, where he found solace in more
wildlife, from grey squirrels to songbirds. His father also bought him
the "sweet medicine" of his first dog, Mick.
At Bromsgrove School, he was a keen member of the natural history
society. Expected to follow in his father's footsteps, Drabble then
studied Medicine at Keble College, Oxford, but left after two years to
switch to an engineering course at a polytechnic in London, a place he
found "uncivilised".
His father then arranged a job for him at one of the Sankeys factories
in Bilston, back home in Staffordshire, where he gained all-round
experience in the toolroom. He moved on to work at Salters, a West
Bromwich spring-balance manufacturer, staying for 23 years and
spending the last seven on the board of directors.
During his time in industry, Drabble had begun to indulge his love of
nature through writing, his first article - about Staffordshire bull
terriers - appearing in The Field in 1941. (He continued to write for
the magazine until 1989.) Brian Vesey-FitzGerald, the first editor who
commissioned him, subsequently moved to the publisher Robert Hale and
asked Drabble to write a book about his home county, Staffordshire
(1948). He followed it with Black Country (1952).
Vesey-FitzGerald also encouraged Drabble to enter broadcasting and he
made his radio début with a feature on the Black Country's bull-rings
and bull-stakes for the BBC Midland Region in 1947. He continued to
make contributions for the next 13 years, especially to the rural
programme Countrylover, before presenting its successors, Countryside
and In the Country, himself.
Drabble's television baptism came in 1952, when he was invited to show
off his tame badger for a live broadcast and he was soon in demand for
children's programmes. Then, in 1961, he left his day job to pursue
writing and broadcasting full time and, three years later, began a
weekly column in the Birmingham Evening Mail that ran until 1990.
One Man and His Dog, screened on BBC2, brought him national fame, as
well as more television work, beginning with the rural magazine
programme Country Game (1976-79), presented by Julian Pettifer, then
Angela Rippon, with Drabble as a contributor.
He was also one of the hosts of Badger Watch (1977), following the
daily habits of a wild badger set with the aid of an infra-red camera,
before teaming up with Rippon to present In the Country (1979-80) and,
on his own, examining the different roles of dogs in It's a Dog's Life
(1979). The respect accorded Drabble led the Queen to consult him when
her budgerigars at Windsor Castle were being attacked by hawks.
In 1962, shortly after becoming a full-time writer and broadcaster,
Drabble and his wife Jess had bought a derelict cottage on the edge of
the Staffordshire village of Abbots Bromley, with 90 acres of
neglected woodland, including a heronry of 18 nests. They developed it
into a wildlife reserve, with the hope that others would follow their
habitat-management example.
He described the creation and philosophy of his sanctuary in the books
Design for a Wilderness (1973), My Beloved Wilderness (1971) and My
Wilderness in Bloom (1986), before finding it under threat. Center
Parcs put forward plans to build a £75m leisure village in the
adjoining Bagot's Wood, aiming to attract 300,000 holiday-makers a
year. The district council signalled that it would try to persuade the
government to overrule the Forestry Commission, which had refused to
sell the lease on the land, but there was massive local opposition,
with Drabble at the forefront, and the Minister of Agriculture refused
to intervene.
The broadcaster gave his personal view about the future of Britain's
rural environment in the four-part series My Wilderness Reprieved
(1993) and, a year later, explained his long-term objectives for the
wildlife reserve. "My aim is to see that children who come here are
brought up with discipline and respect for the countryside and that
they enjoy it," he said.
I hope they will look back on this place and won't stand the nonsense
many people put up with now, with land destroyed by motorways and
theme parks, and everything working purely for profit. My ambition is
to leave this place better than when I found it.
Drabble mounted various campaigns, including one against plans to
exterminate badgers in the West Country on the premise that they were
spreading bovine tuberculosis among cattle. He was vocal about
"poisons spewed upon our land in the name of 'efficient' agriculture'
" and on one occasion inspired readers of Saga magazine to write in
their thousands to the Minister of Agriculture, urging him to act
effectively against poisoned peanuts that were entering the country
and killing birds - and, potentially, humans. Drabble's other targets
included ramblers, whom he described as "the woolly hat brigade", and
"trendy civil libbers".
His other books included The Penguin Book of Pets (1964), Badgers at
My Window (1969), Pleasing Pets (1975), Country Matters (1982), It's a
Dog's Life (1983) and two volumes of One Man and His Dog (1978, 1989).
Anthony Hayward
Brad Ferguson
Hyfler/Rosner <rel...@rcn.com> wrote:
> One Man and His Dog
Heh. May the Juliet continue to rest in peace.