The story so far

My life had changed beyond recognition in fact I had changed beyond recognition. Not so long ago I had been a thin, glamorous, TV presenter, I had featured in FHM magazine’s most sexy
woman survey and was called top totty by the tabloid newspapers. I was presenter of choice for the BBC and was beside myself with joy when I was asked to present programmes like Tomorrow’s World, the Queen’s Jubilee the Eclipse and the Millennium, once in a lifetime dream jobs. I had a wonderful income a beautiful house in London and got invited to all the best parties and premieres, and then I went and ruined it all.

All the time I had been quietly working on a secret passion, in the evenings I had a secret life. I would pack up books into a satchel, take off the make up and step out of the kitten heels. I had been taking a degree in Ecology and Conservation at Birkbeck college, part of the University of London. Slowly the passion took over my life, when I met a mutually passionate tall dark handsome stranger who turned out to be a wildlife film cameraman my demise as glamorous London totty was written in stone, in just a few short months, I was a large pregnant married woman who lived in the country and made wildlife films. The truth was I had never been happier.

Charlie and I fell in love and moved out west to the countryside, to an idyllic location where two cottages sat beside a river. This was the river where Charlie had spent days and weeks as a boy. Some of those days he was meant to be in school, instead he was working out how to take photos, how to capture the beauty he saw all around him. In his formative years he had begun another love affair with that most glamorous of English birds, not me, the kingfisher. He perfected the art of photographing it and grew up to be a wildlife cameraman.

Years later we were lucky enough to find the cottage for sale on the very same river, and when we moved to live beside it, I grew to share his passion for its beauty.

In fact life was so perfect watching the river slip by that the only thing missing happened to be Charlie’s other obsession, otters.


But not for long........



April fools day dawned bright and early as every new day did with a baby forcing me into consciousness prising open my eyelids and levering me away from sleep. Then I had to do the same with Charlie so that he would go and get me a cup of tea. We sat in bed for a while recovering from the shock of waking and then it was all systems go for the day. A lot of rushing and cajoling, sock finding and snack box packing and one was at nursery, a lot of fetching and carrying, spraying and sock finding and the daily washing was on, another lot of pulling and coaxing, sock finding and tickling and the baby was off with his nanny for a walk. A bacon sandwich and a coffee, a charged mobile and of course some more sock finding and the big man was off for a mornings editing in tv land and then there was just me and a mountain of washing up and e-mails and a to do list as long as the table and down to the floor. I put the kettle on, under the influence of caffeine I might just make it.

My agent arrived. We had a meeting. This meant we talked and gossiped and then finally got down to the business of answering correspondence. Two hours in and we were crouched over a slowly decreasing pile of paper on my office floor deep in concentration, surrounded by diary pages, lists of facts and figures, charity requests and used coffee cups. The buzzer went, a rather timid voice asked is Charlie there?

I felt a little bit irritable, who on earth would this be, any-one who knew him would call him on his mobile first.
‘No, can I help?’ I said my eyes resting on the pile of post which even after all our work must be at least two foot tall.

‘Do you know when he might be back?’

'Not till later, who is it?'
'Well, he doesn’t know me..'
Hilary took a large padded envelope and opened it. The remainder of the pile wobbled dangerously. I really needed to get back to work. From outside the noise of a car passing the person in the lane was drowning out her voice, I was only half listening.

'…..so I’ve got it in the back of my car, I’m really sorry to intrude but I didn’t really know what else to do. So can you help?'

‘Help you? help me,’ I selfishly thought, ‘I am drowning in paperwork, my life has no meaning other than shifting pieces of paper from place to place.’

'I’m sorry,' I replied I can't hear you very well, Charlie isn't here at the moment what do you need him to help with? Perhaps you can call back?
'Its just a baby otter.' And she had not a moment more to speak. I pressed the button which opens the gates.
‘Come in'
The paperwork pile finally toppled in the air vacuum made by my swift departure.

Hilary, my agent, caught up with me in the kitchen. 'What’s going on?' she said, 'a caffeine low?' 'No' I replied, peering out of the kitchen window as an estate car pulled in the gate way. Its this lady, she’s found an abandoned otter cub, she needs us to help her. The light went out in Hilary’s eyes, she knew it was just her and the pile of paperwork, a battle that she would now be fighting alone, from the mention of the words ‘otter’ and ‘cub’ she knew that she too had been abandoned.

Not only had I spent a good deal of my early career escaping the television studios in London to help at St Tiggywinkle's wildlife hospital in Aylesbury but I had then done a part time degree in Environmental conservation at Birkbeck college in London, our first natural history film had been about the discovery that wild otters were returning to the river outside our house. Now I was being asked to help an otter cub, Hilary and a pile of diary dates and correspondance didn’t stand a chance. Still she smiled and said all the right things like, 'Good, I'll put the kettle on then'

I dashed over the bridge to meet the woman, she looked exhausted a bit pale and shaky but smiling shook my hand. 'I’m really sorry' we said simultaneously and laughed and then continued
‘I couldn’t hear you very well and .. I said, as she said 'I didn’t want to intrude I know how much you value your privacy but we had seen your film about the otters on the river and knew that you would know what to do for the poor thing, we just haven’t got a clue'
'Where is she?'
'In here, the lady walked around to the boot and unlocked it.
'I’m Philippa by the way'
'I’m Linda
We smiled at each other.
'So lets get her inside to the warm, where did you find her?'
I picked out the large grey plastic box from the boot and Linda followed me up the path over the river and into the house, talking all the way.

'Last night' she explained 'We heard a squeaking in the garden after it had been dark a while, it was really high pitched.' I nodded my agreement I knew exactly what she meant, I had heard a baby otter’s squeak before now and it was certainly designed to cut through any ambient water sound, persistent and shrill.

‘My husband went outside' Linda was shouting now as we went over the bridge the river was still high from the large amount of rain we had had recently and was tumbling over the weir outside the house at quite a speed making a roar in the process. 'He couldn’t see it the first time but the second time he went out he found it on the lawn just sitting there squeaking in the rain

We opened the back door and were in the warmth and peace of the kitchen. I introduced Linda to Hilary who asked her how she had her tea and handed her a warm steaming mug. While she did so I gently placed the box on the floor beside the warm red aga, although it was light it felt heavy, heavy with portent. I was suddenly reluctant to open it somehow.

Linda now had a flush to her cheeks from the cold spring air and warmed her hands around the mug as she continued, she didn’t seem to notice the mug she had was covered in otters, 'Anyway we left it for three hours hoping its mum would come back, and then we decided to bring it in. We didn’t know if that was the right thing to do we just couldn’t stand it any longer. We didn’t know what to give it so we gave it a little bit of sugar solution and put it on the hot water bottle in the box. I tried it on a puppy bottle this morning but I don’t even know if I’m giving it the right milk. Much as I’d love to I can’t really deal with it much longer I don’t know what I’m doing and I’m already really late for work.'

'I phoned a couple of animal charities but they didn’t seem to be interested' she continued, I was surprised at that but thankful that this cub had landed on our doorstep as opposed to any one else, I knew lots of people that would know what to do.

'Linda from what I know you have done all the right things, I know several people that I think can help and I'll start by phoning them but I'd better have a look first.'

I opened the box.

Inside there was indeed an otter. A tiny, weak cub, smaller and younger than any other otter I had ever seen, she barely registered my appearance.

As I reached in to lift her out, Hilary asked Leslie whether they lived far away.
‘Not really just down the road in Shatterly’
I took in as much as I could about the squashed cub face. She didn’t struggle or move at all, or make any sound, her eyes were dull, yet her coat looked quite bright and shiny and I couldn’t feel her ribs. I realised she was weak but thought she couldn’t have been alone for too long. At first glance I didn’t get the impression she was at death’s door but she was certainly low and tired and not even bothered by me.

I put her back on her hot water bottle and closed the lid of the box so that the air could get in but she couldn’t get out.

I telephoned Grace. Grace was our friend in Skye who had been rehabilitating otters and cubs for many years as part of the work of the IOSF, they had been very successful in returning injured otters and abandoned cubs to the wild where they belonged.

She was surprised to hear from me, we normally had a little catch up about once every six months and we had only spoken a month before.
‘I have an otter’
‘Oh,’ it was an oh with a certain tone to it, not thrilled or excited but the kind of ‘oh’ that your teacher says when they want you to feel they have been let down, ‘what kind?’
‘A cub,’ I smiled at Leslie, ‘a lady who lives near by has just bought her to me, what the hell do we do?’
‘Goodness,’ Grace rallied herself, ‘ok how old is it?’
‘I don’t know, how do you tell?’
‘Look in its mouth does it have any teeth,’

I opened the box and gently felt into the cub’s mouth with my fingers, I was a bit worried about doing this but there was no resistance. I could certainly feel some small hard pointy nashers.

‘Yes’
‘Ok well then she is probably out of the holt and beginning to be weaned’
I explained, where she had been found and how, and she confirmed my thoughts that Leslie had done all the right things.

‘She looks in good condition but she does seem quite low, she doesn’t struggle, not even when I just put my fingers into her mouth’

‘Any obvious injuries? Legs?’

‘Yes, four.’
‘Ha Ha, are they ok?

I checked. Her legs were tiny just about an inch, they ended in the most exquisite feet which made me catch my breath. I had never seen an otters feet this close before. Dark brown webs joined long fingers that seemed so delicate and were adorned by little tiny claws on the end. They were relaxed and curled over my finger, although they felt quite cold. All her legs felt and looked straight, I hoped my judgement was good enough. I looked for cuts or grazes but saw nothing.
‘No blood or wonky limbs that I can see’ I reported.
‘Good, I wonder why Mum left her then’ said Grace almost to herself, she must go through this every time they had another orphan.
‘Well the river is really high, we have had an awful lot of rain in the last few days”
‘Oh, well that could explain it’
We both knew that when the river was high otters would need to be on the move. For a mother otter with young cubs it could be a particularly tricky time, the rising waters would often flood the natal holt where the cubs had so far spent their short life and in those conditions, although moving cubs who hadn’t yet learnt to swim was dangerous, the mother would have no option but to take emergency measures.

This river, more than any I had ever witnessed, could change level dramatically after a day or so of rain, if the rain was particularly heavy you could notice the difference after just a few hours.

We had seen an otter in just those circumstances not long after moving to live beside the river. It was the very first sighting we had of a mother with cubs who went on to star in our first film. Up until then we had only seen a dog otter on the river. But one night the water was rising alarmingly quickly. To our knowledge the house had never ever flooded but you couldn’t ignore the river when it was only metres from the house. Charlie had been outside to wrestle with the iron work on the bridge which operated the sluice gate. This piece of machinery was left over from the days when mill workers lived in our cottages and would use the sluice to control the flow of water into the mill further down the river. Now the mill was no longer in use but the sluice was still regularly used to help control the flow of the water. I watched Charlie through the window, his tall figure stooped against the rain falling so heavily that it looked like silver diagonal lines all about him. He really struggled to force the metal to begin to move and then got into the rythmn just as the gate came into view above the raging water, suddenly he stopped, he looked as though he were listening to something, shone his torch down river then came rushing to the house.

‘Otters’ he hissed at me and whizzed around the house turning all the lights off so that we could see outside a little better. He had heard the whistling of otter cubs, and in his torchlight seen a mother carrying a little one. He had dived into the house so that he wouldn’t scare the mother whose heart was probably pounding anyway. We saw her slip up river with the tiny cub and the whistling continued just beside the house. She could only carry one at a time and so the other was always left in danger. At this point all the usual holts and hideouts were flooded and so she had the added pressure of trying to find somewhere new which would be warm and dry and safe from predators. The cub continued to squeak, we could hear the noise clearly inside the house above the noise of the raging river and we were terrified that if we could hear it so could any predator. The cub was very young and utterly defenceless.

After about fifteen minutes we had seen her returning just outside the kitchen window and just a few seconds later the whistling stopped as she found her cub and scooped it up. We were so relieved. She wasted no time and was gone up river in an instant, as she went we filmed her with our home video camera, it was the first shot we had ever got of a wild otter on our river and was to become part of our first natural history film.

Now, years later, here in my kitchen was a cub whose mother had never returned. Alone in the rain, it had whistled and whistled craving her security, but she had never come back.

I had witnessed the determination of a mother otter in that situation, it must have taken something significant to stop her, perhaps she had been run over, perhaps she had lost another cub, or perhaps she simply couldn’t cope. Whatever it was, I was now looking after her baby.

A thought suddenly struck me, they were probably related, otters are territorial so it could very well be the same mother that we had filmed and got to know so well that had abandoned this a cub a few years later. There was no knowing for sure but it was very likely.

I shook myself, Grace had got back to practicalities. She has raised many, many baby otters and seen them react in all sorts of different ways.

‘First of all you need to re-hydrate it,’ my years at the wildlife hospital had taught me that much.
‘But I have no drip, no saline here’
‘Its ok you can make it have you got a pen?’ She gave me a recipe for emergency re-hydration fluid.

‘One teaspoon salt, one teaspoon baking powder, two teaspoons sugar, and half a litre of water. Give her some of that, do you have a syringe?’
‘Umm, yes, the baby has just been ill we had it for giving Calpol’
‘great, just a drop at a time and then phone me when you can assess her condition’

I put the phone down and looked up at the two women watching me with anxious faces through the steam from their tea.
‘Drink?’ asked Hils
‘Double whiskey,’ I was quick off the mark, thinking fondly of drinking the amber fluid in Skye.
They laughed. ‘It’s all Ok’, I filled Leslie in on all that grace had said as I raced around the kitchen gathering the ingredients.
‘So don’t worry about a thing, we will look after her, I can phone Grace whenever I’m not sure and put your number there’ I handed her the notepad ‘ and I will phone you tomorrow and let you know how she is.’

My cheery demeanour belied the nerves within. I didn’t really want a cup of tea because I felt too sick. What if I was missing something, what if something was wrong that I hadn’t seen?

I mixed up the fluid in the metal mixing jug, feeling very nervous. A baby otter was a huge responsibility what if I made a mistake and it died? All the powders had dissolved.

Now for the tricky bit.

I checked that the syringe was clean and sucked up some of the fluid, sat on the filthy kitchen sofa with the otter on my lap and steeled myself to prize open the jaws. There was no resistance at all, it was easy. I slowly dripped the fluid into her mouth, nothing not a movement, in fact it was so easy that I could have squirted the lot in and drowned her. I had forgotten to ask Grace how much so I stopped after a few ml, I remembered reading once that a kitten’s stomach was only the size of a walnut and so I didn’t want to overdo it. Feeling more relaxed I put the cub back in her box, she just lay there staring vacantly at me while I had a gulp of the tea thrust at me by Hilary and picked up the phone. Charlie was in an edit putting together footage of a cheetah hunt that he had just shot in Kenya.
‘How are you getting on’
‘Ok, bit slow, I think its looking ok though’
‘Well you had better speed up’
‘Why,’ I took a breath before delivering the news my husband had spent his life wanting to hear.
‘Because there is a baby otter in front of your aga.’