Gerald Durrell (1925 – 1995)
Naturalist, zookeeper, author, and television presenter, most famous for founding what is know called the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust on the Channel Island of Jersey and for writing a number of books based on his animal-collecting and conservation expeditions.
If naturalists go to heaven (about which there is considerable ecclesiastical doubt), I hope that I will be furnished with a troop of kakapo to amuse me in the evening instead of television.
His pen squeaking like a demented wren as he wrote copious notes.
An immensely tall, angular figure ... His gown hung round him in long folds like the wings of a bat, and his wig was perched slightly askew over a lantern jawed face with a blue chin, soulful spaniel-brown eyes and a turned-down mouth like a slit. But for his garb, you would have said that he was a dyspeptic undertaker in a town where nobody ever died.