121 Facts About Gerald Durrell

Gerald Malcolm Durrell OBE was a British naturalist, writer, zookeeper, conservationist, and television presenter.

Gerald Durrell was born in Jamshedpur in British India, and moved to England when his father died in 1928.

Gerald Durrell married Jacquie Rasen in 1951; they had very little money, and she persuaded him to write an account of his first trip to the Cameroons.

Gerald Durrell finally found a suitable site on the island of Jersey, and leased the property in late 1959.

Gerald Durrell envisaged the Jersey Zoo as an institution for the study of animals and for captive breeding, rather than a showcase for the public.

The zoo repeatedly came close to bankruptcy over the next few years, and Gerald Durrell raised money for it by his writing and by fundraising appeals.

In 1976 he separated from his wife; they were divorced in 1979, and Gerald Durrell remarried, to Lee McGeorge, an American zoologist.

Gerald Durrell was diagnosed with liver cancer and cirrhosis in 1994, and received a liver transplant, but died the following January.

Gerald Durrell was cremated, and his ashes were buried at Jersey Zoo.

Gerald Durrell was born in Jamshedpur, British India, on 7 January 1925.

Gerald Durrell's father, Lawrence Samuel Durrell, was a civil engineer; his mother was Louisa Florence Durrell.

Gerald Durrell had two older brothers, Lawrence and Leslie, and an older sister, Margaret.

Gerald Durrell's parents were both born in India: his mother's family were Irish Protestants from Cork, and his father's father, who was from Suffolk, had come to India and married an Anglo-Irish woman.

Gerald Durrell's father insisted that Louisa leave household chores and parenting duties to the Indian servants, as was expected of Anglo-Indian women of the day, but she was more independent than he wished.

Gerald Durrell spent much time with her cook, learning to make curries, and had trained as a nurse.

When Gerald Durrell was fourteen months old, the family left Jamshedpur and sailed to Britain, where his father bought a house in Dulwich, in south London, near where both the older boys were at school.

Gerald Durrell's father fell ill in early 1928, and died of a cerebral haemorrhage on 16 April.

Louisa was devastated by his death, but Gerald Durrell was scarcely affected, having been much closer to his mother and his ayah than his father, who had often been absent as his work had taken him all over British India.

Gerald Durrell later recalled that she began "resorting to the bottle more and more frequently" and eventually had "what in those days was called a 'nervous breakdown".

Gerald Durrell was left alone in the house except for a governess, brought in until Louisa returned, at which point he was sent to a kindergarten nearby instead.

Gerald Durrell enjoyed his time there, particularly because one of the teachers encouraged his interest in natural history, bringing in an aquarium with goldfish and pond snails.

Gerald Durrell loathed the school; the only lessons he enjoyed were in natural history.

Gerald Durrell bought him a dog, which he named Roger, as compensation for his traumatic time there.

Gerald Durrell never received any further formal education, though he intermittently had tutors.

Gerald Durrell fell in love with Corfu as soon as they moved out of the town, and spent his days exploring, with a butterfly net and empty matchboxes in which to bring home his finds.

Louisa soon decided he needed to continue his education, and hired George to tutor him in the mornings, but Gerald Durrell was a poor student.

Stephanides spent a half-day every week with Gerald Durrell, walking in the countryside and talking to him about natural history, among many other topics.

Gerald Durrell was enormously influential on Gerald, and helped to encourage and systematise Gerald's love of the natural world.

Gerald Durrell collected animals of all kinds, keeping them in the villa in whatever containers he could find, sometimes causing an uproar in the family when they discovered water snakes in the bath or scorpions in matchboxes.

Stephanides's daughter, Alexia, who was a little younger than Gerald Durrell, became his closest friend, and the families of each hoped that the two would one day marry.

Gerald Durrell's education continued to be haphazard, with tutors who were unable to interest him.

Lawrence encouraged Gerald Durrell to read widely, giving him an eclectic selection of books, from the unexpurgated version of Lady Chatterley's Lover to Darwin.

Leslie and Lawrence each owned boats, and Gerald Durrell was given a small rowing boat as a birthday present.

Gerald Durrell spent the next two years exploring the countryside around Bournemouth and reading books from the library, supplementing these with purchases when he could afford to do so.

Gerald Durrell spent the rest of the war mucking out and grooming the horses, giving riding lessons, and occasionally having brief affairs with women he was teaching to ride.

Gerald Durrell applied to the Zoological Society of London, and was invited to the zoo to meet the superintendent, Geoffrey Vevers.

Gerald Durrell was transferred periodically between areas of the zoo, and spent much of his time cleaning the animals' cages, but occasionally had more interesting tasks, such as helping to hand-rear four newborn Pere David's deer.

Gerald Durrell continued his reading while at Whipsnade, now concentrating on learning more about zoos.

Gerald Durrell was disappointed by the weak scientific knowledge of Whipsnade's staff.

Smith and Gerald Durrell established a friendship that lasted long after Gerald Durrell left Whipsnade.

Gerald Durrell had good friends among the female keepers, and some romances, including one woman whom he took to Bournemouth to meet his family a couple of times.

Gerald Durrell planned to visit the British Cameroons in West Africa.

Gerald Durrell teamed up with John Yealland, an ornithologist with some collecting experience, and several British zoos expressed interest in seeing whatever they were able to bring back.

The planning took over a year, and during that time Gerald Durrell met and fell in love with a woman in London that he refers to in his writings only as "Juliet".

Gerald Durrell considered marrying her, but she ended the affair after a couple of years.

Gerald Durrell spent months there, collecting hundreds of animals, and the return to Mamfe required him to hire sixty people to carry them all, with Durrell suffering from sandfly fever during the trip.

Gerald Durrell rested at Bakebe for a few days to recover, and while he was there a hunter brought in an angwantibo, one of the animals Durrell was keenest to obtain, as he knew London Zoo were looking to acquire them.

Gerald Durrell gave Webb a chimpanzee, named Cholmondely, to take back to London Zoo.

Gerald Durrell came down with malaria just before the return home.

Gerald Durrell was told by a doctor that he would die if he insisted on travelling to the coast and boarding the ship, rather than resting.

Hunters frequently brought snakes, and Gerald Durrell was bitten by a burrowing viper, requiring an emergency trip to Bemenda, forty miles away, for antiserum.

Gerald Durrell did not have a permit to kill any further hippos, and was deeply distressed by having had to kill two animals at all, let alone in a failed attempt to obtain their calf.

Reporters from most of the British papers came on board the ship to interview them when they docked at Liverpool, and Gerald Durrell told them that he and Smith had already begun planning another trip, this time to South America.

In January 1950 Smith and Gerald Durrell arrived in British Guiana.

In 1949 Gerald Durrell had met Jacquie Wolfenden, the nineteen-year-old daughter of the proprietors of a hotel in Manchester where he stayed while doing business with Belle Vue Zoo.

Gerald Durrell returned to the hotel in May 1950, since the animals from the trip to British Guiana were housed nearby.

Gerald Durrell really cared about them, and they, in a funny way, returned this love and interest with obvious trust.

Gerald Durrell had certainly forgotten that I was there, and concentrated his entire attention on the animals.

Once the animals had all been sold, Gerald Durrell went back to Bournemouth, but wrote frequent letters and telegrams to her.

Jacquie's father objected to the relationship, since Gerald Durrell appeared to have no money and no prospects.

Gerald Durrell visited Manchester again to talk to Jacquie's father, and to her surprise the meeting was amicable, with Gerald Durrell receiving permission to see more of Jacquie.

Gerald Durrell had to get a job, but the only jobs he was suited for were in zoos, and his chances of obtaining one were damaged by George Cansdale, the superintendent of London Zoo.

Gerald Durrell had criticised London Zoo for its policy of showcasing as many animals as possible, rather than prioritising scientific research.

Gerald Durrell still demurred, and then came down with a recurrence of malaria: Jacquie later recalled that when the doctor advised a light, high-fluid diet, she had to ask if bread and tea would suffice as that was all they could afford.

Late that year they heard from the BBC that the script had been accepted, and on 9 December 1951 Gerald Durrell read the talk live on the Home Service.

The fee was fifteen guineas, and Gerald Durrell produced more fifteen-minute talks but had now decided that it might be worth writing a book.

Gerald Durrell decided to write an account of his first trip to the Cameroons, and quickly realised that he did not want to simply relate the events of the trip chronologically; he wanted to make the animals central characters, and to make the book entertaining and humorous rather than simply factual.

Gerald Durrell continued to apply for jobs while waiting for a response, but without success.

Curtis Brown read a galley proof of The Overloaded Ark and asked Gerald Durrell to come to London to meet with them, and again he had to phone them to explain that he could not afford the fare.

Gerald Durrell soon began work on a book about the expedition to British Guiana, titled Three Singles to Adventure.

Gerald Durrell himself was strongly critical of how zoos were run at the time, but kept his views out of his early books.

The money Gerald Durrell was earning from writing enabled him to plan another expedition.

Gerald Durrell disliked writing: Jacquie and Sophie "cajoled and bullied" him, in the words of his biographer, during the writing of The Drunken Forest, and when it looked as though he would never finish The New Noah they began writing a final chapter for it, prompting Gerald Durrell to return to the book and complete it.

Gerald Durrell developed jaundice, and while ill he decided to write a book about his childhood in Corfu.

Gerald Durrell had given a talk in 1952 called "My Island Tutors", in which he had described four of the tutors he had had on Corfu, but had made no other use of his pre-war memories.

Gerald Durrell planned the order in which every character would be introduced.

Gerald Durrell was exhausted by the time the book was completed, and went with Jacquie to the Scilly Isles for two weeks to relax and recover.

Gerald Durrell's family read the manuscript, and were "more bemused than amused", in the words of Durrell's biographer.

Gerald Durrell had taken liberties with chronology, but claimed that every incident in the book was completely true, though Margaret and Louisa thought otherwise.

Gerald Durrell had accepted that the expeditions could never be profitable in themselves, but he knew they would provide material for the books which were his source of income.

Gerald Durrell hoped to make a film of the expedition.

Gerald Durrell settled on returning to the Cameroons, and to Bafut in particular, since he could be sure of cooperation from the Fon and the local hunters.

Gerald Durrell began lobbying Bournemouth town council to establish a zoo there, which he would manage, but received little encouragement.

Gerald Durrell had to be hospitalised because of injuries to his feet, and he became depressed and started drinking heavily.

Gerald Durrell remained depressed at the changes in the Cameroons since he had first visited, even when they finally reached Bafut and met the Fon again.

Gerald Durrell came down with malaria; and then he and Jacquie both caught a blood disease.

Gerald Durrell was visibly nervous in the studio sequences, and the reviews were mixed.

Gerald Durrell had not yet written a book about the most recent Cameroons trip, but was under contract to deliver a book by the end of the year.

Gerald Durrell began planning a trip to Argentina once the negotiations with Poole council collapsed.

Gerald Durrell happened to mention to Fraser that Les Augres would be a wonderful site for the zoo; he had not realised that Fraser was considering selling.

Gerald Durrell described his plans for the zoo to Attenborough, who thought it could not succeed; Gerald Durrell assured him that he would be able to support it with the royalties from his books.

The zoo in Jersey opened on 26 March 1959, and Jacquie packed up the Durrells' belongings in Bournemouth and moved them to Jersey while Gerald was still in Argentina.

Gerald Durrell met him at Tilbury Docks when his ship docked, and he travelled with the animals as they were re-embarked for Jersey.

Gerald Durrell had still not completed the book about the third Cameroons expedition, and again Jacquie found it very difficult to get him to finish writing it.

Gerald Durrell was relieved to find the island much less changed than he had feared.

The limited footage shot in Argentina could not support the programme series that Gerald Durrell had hoped for, but one programme was made from it in 1961, and the BBC commissioned another series, called Zoo Packet, the same summer.

Donations came in, and Gerald Durrell continued writing: Menagerie Manor was an account of the first four years of the zoo's existence, and he worked on the scripts for Two in the Bush, the BBC series based on the 1962 trip.

In July 1963, the Jersey Wildlife Preservation Trust was created and given ownership of the zoo; Gerald Durrell remained in control, as director of the trust.

Gerald Durrell began to drink more: he had been advised to drink Guinness to combat anaemia, and began drinking a crate a day, and gaining weight.

Gerald Durrell set sail in January 1965, and from Freetown the expedition travelled to Kenema in the interior where they set up their base.

Gerald Durrell injured his spine and broke two ribs in an incident with one of the Land Rovers, and was in pain for the rest of the trip.

Gerald Durrell followed this with his first fiction book, a story for children called The Donkey Rustlers.

That winter, the zoo was again in desperate financial trouble: Gerald Durrell was able to persuade the bank not to foreclose on the property, and Lord Jersey, a local aristocrat, covered the staff's wages for a few months to tide them over to the spring.

In early 1967 Gerald Durrell was featured in an episode of the BBC's series Animal People.

Gerald Durrell turned the manuscript of Rosy is My Relative, his first novel, in to his publishers, and went to Corfu again for the summer.

In late 1967 Gerald Durrell became interested in the volcano rabbit, which was found only near Mexico City.

The rabbit was endangered, and Gerald Durrell felt this was a good example of what the Trust might be able to do: captive breeding of a species endangered in the wild, to save it from extinction.

Gerald Durrell worked on a script for a film of My Family and Other Animals, the film rights to which had been acquired by Albert Finney and Michael Medwin, but the film was never made.

Gerald Durrell was furious, and eventually outmanoeuvred the trustees, all of whom resigned.

In 1973 Gerald Durrell visited the US on a three-month fundraising tour, and while there arranged the creation of the Wildlife Preservation Trust International, an organisation intended to funnel American donations to the Trust.

Gerald Durrell spent part of 1975 writing a treatment for a screenplay of Tarka the Otter; the film was made in 1979, with Gerald Durrell sharing screenplay credits.

Gerald Durrell had been working on a book about the zoo, to be titled The Stationary Ark, and in May 1975 filming began in Jersey for a Canadian TV series based on the book.

Gerald Durrell continued writing: The Stationary Ark had not sold well, but his next two books, Golden Bats and Pink Pigeons, about Mauritius, and The Garden of the Gods, the third and final book about his childhood in Corfu, did better.

Gerald Durrell was immediately attracted to her, and courted her, mostly by letter, over the next year, before she finally agreed to marry him.

The wedding was held in May 1979, shortly after Gerald Durrell's divorce was finalised.

In 1981 Gerald Durrell filmed Ark on the Move for Canadian television.

Gerald Durrell's next project was The Amateur Naturalist, co-authored with Lee; it was a handbook for people who wanted to know how to observe nature in their own neighbourhoods and gardens, but it covered many of the world's ecosystem types, such as tundra, tropical forests, and wetlands.

In 1984 Gerald Durrell established the Gerald Durrell Conservation Academy at the zoo headquarters in Jersey, with the goal of providing training in captive breeding methods to help re-establish breeding populations of animals in their home environments.

In 1986 Gerald Durrell had hip-replacement surgery in a bid to counter arthritis, and the following year the other hip was replaced.

Gerald Durrell's ashes are buried in Jersey Zoo, under a memorial plaque bearing a quote by William Beebe, an early advocate for conservation:.

Several species have been named for him, including Clarkeia durrelli, a fossil brachiopod from the Upper Silurian age, named by Gerard Laubacher and others "in admiration of Gerald Durrell whose appreciation of natural history has made this a better world".