Jonathan Shearer was the winner of the BBC television series Castaway 2007

Castaway 2007

Castaway 2007 was a follow-up to the BBC series Castaway 2000 in which a group of people from the British public are "castaway" on a remote island. While in the 2000 series 36 men, women and children moved to a remote Scottish island for a year, this series featured 15 men and women from the...

.

Biography

Nomad, hedonist, jack-of-all-trades, and cynic, Shearer had started (but it is not certain he graduated) several degrees, having studied Chemical Engineering at University of Edinburgh

University of Edinburgh

The University of Edinburgh, founded in 1583, is a public research university located in Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland, and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The university is deeply embedded in the fabric of the city, with many of the buildings in the historic Old Town belonging to the university...

, Philosophy & Law at University of Kent

University of Kent

The University of Kent, previously the University of Kent at Canterbury, is a public research university based in Kent, United Kingdom...

, Education at University of Cambridge

University of Cambridge

The University of Cambridge is a public research university located in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest university in both the United Kingdom and the English-speaking world , and the seventh-oldest globally...

 and Zoology at University of Leeds

University of Leeds

The University of Leeds is a British Redbrick university located in the city of Leeds, West Yorkshire, England...

. For many years he lived an itinerant lifestyle in countries such as Ethiopia

Ethiopia

Ethiopia , officially known as the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. It is the second-most populous nation in Africa, with over 82 million inhabitants, and the tenth-largest by area, occupying 1,100,000 km2...

, Kazakhstan

Kazakhstan

Kazakhstan , officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country in Central Asia and Eastern Europe. Ranked as the ninth largest country in the world, it is also the world's largest landlocked country; its territory of is greater than Western Europe...

, Thailand

Thailand

Thailand , officially the Kingdom of Thailand , formerly known as Siam , is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula and Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the...

, Vietnam

Vietnam

Vietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...

, Brazil

Brazil

Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...

 and Nigeria

Nigeria

Nigeria , officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a federal constitutional republic comprising 36 states and its Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. The country is located in West Africa and shares land borders with the Republic of Benin in the west, Chad and Cameroon in the east, and Niger in...

, and is a skilled linguist, speaking Portuguese

Portuguese language

Portuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...

, French

French language

French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

 and Spanish

Spanish language

Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...

. Whilst having spent much time as a teacher, he also worked as a professional psychic

Psychic

A psychic is a person who professes an ability to perceive information hidden from the normal senses through extrasensory perception , or is said by others to have such abilities. It is also used to describe theatrical performers who use techniques such as prestidigitation, cold reading, and hot...

, barman, sewer digger, zoo-keeper, dog trainer, RSPB officer, banker and tarot card reader. He has taught rifle shooting to delinquents and carried out refuge work for the Lumholtz's tree kangaroo. He also considered becoming a monk, but admits that "the monks didn't want me."

Jonathan has been engaged at least five times.

A self-confessed loner

Loner

A loner is a person who avoids or does not actively seek human interaction or prefers to be alone. There are many reasons for solitude, intentional or otherwise, and "loner" implies no specific cause. Intentional reasons include spiritual and religious considerations or personal philosophies...

, at the time of the program, Jonathan was living on the island of Benbecula

Benbecula

Benbecula is an island of the Outer Hebrides in the Atlantic Ocean off the west coast of Scotland. In the 2001 census it had a usually resident population of 1,249, with a sizable percentage of Roman Catholics. It forms part of the area administered by Comhairle nan Eilean Siar or the Western...

 in Scotland

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

, cleaning hotel rooms to support his poorly paid ornithology

Ornithology

Ornithology is a branch of zoology that concerns the study of birds. Several aspects of ornithology differ from related disciplines, due partly to the high visibility and the aesthetic appeal of birds...

 work for the RSPB. He says: "I have a strong dislike for the kind of deeply earnest, green, touchy-feely idiots whom I suspect you are going to populate your island with."

Jonathan made it to the grand final on 27 May and won Castaway 2007.

Castaway

During the filming of Castaway, Jonathan

• Was booted out of the communal sleeping hut and moved into the potting shed, creating his own little home there.
• Shared a chaste kiss with Catherine Ball after they went on a date.
• Gave away his food rations and warm clothing to those going on the treacherous fishing trips
• Was at the centre of controversy for many episodes after he failed to help Hassan Kobeissi on a joint mission that sparked fury when the other Castaways found out.
• Insulted Wendy Mitchell about her culinary skills, despite her cooking for practically the whole time of their stay on the island.
• Concealed the location of a water well to all but 'Lil Al', after there was a water shortage due to Hassan Kobeissi breaking the water tank.
• Should have been voted out by fellow Castaways in the third week when he and Jason Ross gained the most votes in a vote-out. The production team, unbeknown to the television audience, allowed Lucinda King to change her vote hours after she had decided to vote for Jonathan to leave the island permanently. As a result Jason had to leave with a 1 vote majority 7-6.

Current

Jonathan is now resident in Beijing where he is the mastermind behind Planet of Death.

External links

• http://planet-of-death.com