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Ben Fogle
Fogle at BBC Gardeners' World Live 2008.
Born	Ben Fogle 3 November 1973 (1973-11-03) (age 35)
Occupation	Television presenter
Parents	Julia Foster Bruce Fogle
Website http://www.benfogle.com/

Ben Fogle (born 3 November 1973) is an English television presenter, adventurer and writer.

Biography

The son of actress Julia Foster and broadcasting veterinarian Bruce Fogle, he attended Bryanston School in Dorset. He has two sisters: Emily Fogle, a graphic designer and Tamara Fogle, a London fashion designer. He took a year off from school and worked in an orphanage in Ecuador. Upon his return he read Latin American Studies at the University of Portsmouth and the University of Costa Rica. He worked on the Picture Desk of Tatler magazine in London before leaving to appear in reality show Castaway 2000 and embarking upon a successful media career. In 2006 he married Marina Hunt, co-founder of Kasimira party organisers whom he met whilst walking his black Labrador Retriever, Inca.

Castaway

Fogle first came to public notice by participating in the BBC reality show Castaway 2000, which followed a group of thirty-six people marooned on the Scottish island of Taransay for a year starting 1 January 2000. Billed as a bold experiment for the new millennium, the castaways built a sustainable self-sufficient community from scratch.

The castaways, including eight children, reared their own cattle, sheep, pigs, and chickens, and built an environmentally sound infrastructure including a wind turbine, hydro-electric dam, waterless urinals and long drops.

Living in turf covered eco pods, the castaways built a school, a slaughterhouse and erected poly tunnels to grow produce in the less than temperate Outer Hebrides.

Unlike subsequent reality television, the castaways filmed themselves. The series, made by Lion Television for the BBC had an initial audience of nearly nine million,^{citation needed}.

Presenting

Fogle presenting at Crufts 2008.

Fogle has since become a regular television presenter for the BBC, hosting Crufts, One Man and His Dog, Countryfile, Extreme Dreams with Ben Fogle, Animal Park, Wild on the West Coast and Wild in Africa. He has also reported for Inside Out, "Cash In the Attic", Heaven and Earth, and What Are We Like with Jo Brand.

Sport

Fogle was the first to cross the line in the pairs division of the 2005–2006 Atlantic Rowing Race in "Spirit of EDF Energy", partnered by Olympic rower James Cracknell, third overall. Whilst competing, the pair had their boat fully capsized by huge waves. They made landfall in Antigua at 07:13 GMT on 19 January 2006, a crossing time of 49 days, 19 hours, 8 minutes. After penalties, they were placed second in the pairs and fourth overall. The BBC series that followed the pair, Through Hell and High Water, won an RTS award in 2007.

He has also completed the six day Marathon des Sables for the World Wide Fund for Nature across 160 miles (260 km) of the Sahara Desert and the Safaricom Marathon in Kenya for the TUSK Trust. Fogle has completed the Bupa great North Run, the London Marathon and the Royal Parks Half marathon. Fogle beat Eastenders actor Sid Owen in a three round charity boxing match for BBC Sport Relief under the training of Frank Bruno.

Fogle is an ocean yachtmaster with a sailing world record for the Portsmouth-Cork route.¹

South Pole

Fogle has teamed up with James Cracknell once again along with Ed Coats, a Bristol based doctor, as Team QinetiQ to take part in the inaugural South Pole Race, the first in 97 years, since the great Norwegian-British race between Roald Amundsen and Robert Falcon Scott. The route will cover nearly 600 kilometres (370 mi) and take up to two months across one of the least hospitable environments on Earth. The team will be competing for Great Britain against an international line up of teams including New Zealand, Norway, Italy, Russia and the USA. The race will be filmed by the BBC for the series, On Thin Ice and is due to be aired in 2009.^{citation needed} Macmillan will publish an account of the pair's adventure in June 2009

Writing

He has written three books; The Teatime Islands in search of the remaining islands in the British Empire in which he travels to Saint Helena, Ascension Island, the Falkland Islands, the British Indian Ocean Territories and Tristan da Cunha. He also attempted to travel to Pitcairn Island but when the inhabitants learned that he was a journalist, they refused to let him land.^{citation needed} It was short listed for the W H Smith's people's award for Best Travel Book.^{citation needed}

He has also written Offshore published by Penguin in 2006 in which he travelled around Britain² in search of an island of his own. He visited the Kingdom of Sealand and attempted to invade Rockall in the North Atlantic. In 2006 he published the hit Crossing, published by Atlantic books and co-written with Cracknell followed their Transatlantic rowing bid.

Fogle writes a weekly Country Diary for the Sunday Telegraph and is a regular columnist for The Daily Telegraph and travel writer for The Independent. He has a column in Sky magazine and has contributed to the Evening Standard, New York Times, The Sunday Times and Glamour magazine.

Fogle is the President of the Campaign for National Parks[1], an ambassador for the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and Tusk and a keen supporter of the Duke of Edinburgh award scheme and Hearing Dogs for Deaf People and a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society. He was awarded an honorary doctorate of letters by the University of Portsmouth in 2007.^{citation needed}

Countryfile

He has appeared on the rural affairs programme alongside John Craven since 2001 during which time he has reported on a number of the UK's rural pastimes, including coracle racing, the worm charming championships, the lawn mower racing championship, world stinging nettle eating competition in Dorset, oyster eating championships in Northern Ireland, world conker championships in Essex, the alternative Scottish games, world tin bath racing on the Isle of Man, bog snorkelling and the Man versus Horse race in Wales, Tough Guy, cheese rolling, morris dancing, burning barrels in Devon, Up Helly Aa in Shetland, furry dancing in Cornwall and the world crabbing championships in Walberswick, Suffolk.

In 2008 Ben took part in the World Coal Carrying Championships in Gawthorpe, West Yorkshire finishing in 22nd place.

Extreme Dreams

He presented the BBC 2 series made by Ricochet in 2006 and 2007 in which he selected five members of the public to go on expeditions of a lifetime. Destinations included expeditions to the Kaiteur Falls in Guyana, Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, Mount Baker in Uganda, Mount Roraima in Venezuela, the Black Cat trail in Papua New Guinea, the Inca ruins in Peru, the Sahara Desert of Libya, Across the Arctic tundra of Svalbard in the Arctic Circle and most recently a journey across the Andes of South America from the Equator in Ecuador to the tropic of capricorn in Chile.

The series regularly attracts an audience of 1.5 million

While filming the latest series of Extreme Dreams in Peru, Fogle caught a potentially fatal flesh-eating disease believed to be leishmaniasis. The illness left him bedridden for three weeks on his return home. Fogle will be treated at London's Hospital for Tropical Diseases.³

Television presenting credits

• Crufts (2006, 2007 & 2008)
• The Sand marathon (2004]
• Wild on the West Coast (2007)
• Wild in Africa (2005 & 2006)
• One Man and His Dog
• Countryfile (2001-)
• Animal Park (2002-)
• Big Screen Britain (2003)
• Death by Pets (2003)
• Sport Relief 2004 (2004)
• Through Hell and High Water (2006)
• Cash in the Attic
• Extreme Dreams With Ben Fogle

References

External links

• Official website
• Ben Fogle at the Internet Movie Database
• Atlantic Rowing Race
• Ben Fogle and Castaway 2000
• Trekforce Worldwide assistance with Extreme Dreams