Mike Tomkies
Encyclopedia
Mike Tomkies The Wilderness Man (born May 25, 1928), is a British
nature writer, naturalist and filmmaker who has inspired thousands with his brutally honest accounts of almost 40 years experience living in the wildest and most remote parts of Canada, Scotland and Spain.
Born in 1928, he grew up to serve in the Coldstream Guards
where he competed as an army athlete
and saw active service in Palestine. He went on to work as a newspaper
reporter
and was also a successful amateur cycle
racer.
An attempt to sail around the world in 1952 ended with him being shipwreck
ed and having to walk 400 miles (643.7 km) from Lisbon
to Madrid
.
He found his way to journalism jobs in Fleet Street
and Hollywood where he interviewed and pulled scoops on stars including Ava Gardner
(just after her divorce from Frank Sinatra
); Mario Lanza
, Elvis Presley
, Sophia Loren
, Errol Flynn
, Burt Lancaster
, Kirk Douglas
, Yul Brynner
, Clark Gable
, Dean Martin
, Rock Hudson
, Jayne Mansfield
, Cary Grant
, Paul Newman
, Debbie Reynolds
, Joan Collins
, Peter O'Toole
and Sean Connery
.
At 38 he decided to start a new life in Canada
, setting out virtually penniless in an old milk truck to build a log cabin on the Canadian Pacific coast. Over his time in Canada he worked as a logger, assistant blaster and sea salmon fisherman but spent most of his time living alone and surviving mainly off the sea. This was where he began his wildlife studies tracking grizzly bears, cougars, caribou, bald eagles and killer whales, which over three years developed into the book Alone In The Wilderness, which was snapped up by Reader's Digest
and became a critically acclaimed best seller.
Heading back south to Hollywood Tomkies picked up the celebrity side of his life again socialising with stars like John Wayne
, Robert Mitchum
, Sammy Davis Jr and Steve McQueen
; during this time he was also offered a screen test by Doris Day
, however, the wild kept calling and eventually he returned to the UK and moved to Eilean Shona
, a remote island off the west coast of Scotland
. There he rebuilt a wood
en crofthouse which had been used as a shelter for sheep and began observing and writing about Scottish nature including golden eagle, black throated diver, pine marten and Scottish wildcat.
The studies and writing continued at a small crofter's cottage called Gaskan on the shore of Loch Shiel
, which Tomkies named "Wildernesse", and where he cared for a variety of injured animals, tracked and studied golden eagles over a 300 square miles (777 km²) area for the government and was the first person to successfully breed the now critically endangered Scottish wildcat and return individuals to the wild.
Tomkies studied eagles in Canada, Scotland and Spain for 42 years (1967 to 2009) spending more than 3000 hours on precarious cliff ledges in his home made "invisible" hides for up to 38 hours at a time. Over his 20 years in the Highlands Tomkies revealed Scotland's rarest wildlife in his books to widespread acclaim from naturalists, conservationists, critics and even the Duke of Edinburgh;
"This book does more than describe a piece of wild country and its population of wild animals: it gives a picture of someone totally absorbed by his subject."
In 1988 he was recognised for his work by being elected an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland.
For eight years, Tomkies' only companion was his german shepherd dog, Moobli who assisted him in his wildlife tracking. After Moobli died Tomkies spent the next four years alone, completing his studies of golden eagles and rare Scottish species. He then spent five years in mountain ranges throughout Spain making two films and writing a book about species including brown bear, lynx, wolf, wild boar, vultures and eagles working out of a crumbling old villa with no glass in the windows or running water.
A keen interest in film making also developed throughout the experiences in Scotland and Spain, beginning with mountainous slogs carrying 60 lb (27.2 kg) of 16mm camera equipment, all the way up to modern miniDV cameras, Tomkies recorded twelve feature length films on wildlife with a focus on Scotland and the golden eagle. Three network TV programmes were made about his life and work in the wilds, the last of which "Wild Cathedral" was repeated seven times.
Today, Tomkies is based in a ramshackle farmhouse in southern England and is still writing books. He appeared in the documentary film Last of the Scottish Wildcats (Coffee Films 2006) and became the patron for a new charity, the Scottish Wildcat Association in 2009, who also recognised his achievements naming him an Honorary Member of the Association for life. Tomkies says his latest book, and first fictional novel, will be his last.
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
nature writer, naturalist and filmmaker who has inspired thousands with his brutally honest accounts of almost 40 years experience living in the wildest and most remote parts of Canada, Scotland and Spain.
Born in 1928, he grew up to serve in the Coldstream Guards
Coldstream Guards
Her Majesty's Coldstream Regiment of Foot Guards, also known officially as the Coldstream Guards , is a regiment of the British Army, part of the Guards Division or Household Division....
where he competed as an army athlete
Athletics (track and field)
Athletics is an exclusive collection of sporting events that involve competitive running, jumping, throwing, and walking. The most common types of athletics competitions are track and field, road running, cross country running, and race walking...
and saw active service in Palestine. He went on to work as a newspaper
Newspaper
A newspaper is a scheduled publication containing news of current events, informative articles, diverse features and advertising. It usually is printed on relatively inexpensive, low-grade paper such as newsprint. By 2007, there were 6580 daily newspapers in the world selling 395 million copies a...
reporter
Journalist
A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...
and was also a successful amateur cycle
Bicycle
A bicycle, also known as a bike, pushbike or cycle, is a human-powered, pedal-driven, single-track vehicle, having two wheels attached to a frame, one behind the other. A person who rides a bicycle is called a cyclist, or bicyclist....
racer.
An attempt to sail around the world in 1952 ended with him being shipwreck
Shipwreck
A shipwreck is what remains of a ship that has wrecked, either sunk or beached. Whatever the cause, a sunken ship or a wrecked ship is a physical example of the event: this explains why the two concepts are often overlapping in English....
ed and having to walk 400 miles (643.7 km) from Lisbon
Lisbon
Lisbon is the capital city and largest city of Portugal with a population of 545,245 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Lisbon extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of 3 million on an area of , making it the 9th most populous urban...
to Madrid
Madrid
Madrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. The population of the city is roughly 3.3 million and the entire population of the Madrid metropolitan area is calculated to be 6.271 million. It is the third largest city in the European Union, after London and Berlin, and its metropolitan...
.
He found his way to journalism jobs in Fleet Street
Fleet Street
Fleet Street is a street in central London, United Kingdom, named after the River Fleet, a stream that now flows underground. It was the home of the British press until the 1980s...
and Hollywood where he interviewed and pulled scoops on stars including Ava Gardner
Ava Gardner
Ava Lavinia Gardner was an American actress.She was signed to a contract by MGM Studios in 1941 and appeared mainly in small roles until she drew attention with her performance in The Killers . She became one of Hollywood's leading actresses, considered one of the most beautiful women of her day...
(just after her divorce from Frank Sinatra
Frank Sinatra
Francis Albert "Frank" Sinatra was an American singer and actor.Beginning his musical career in the swing era with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, Sinatra became an unprecedentedly successful solo artist in the early to mid-1940s, after being signed to Columbia Records in 1943. Being the idol of the...
); Mario Lanza
Mario Lanza
right|thumb|[[MGM]] still, circa 1949Mario Lanza was an American tenor and Hollywood movie star of the late 1940s and the 1950s. The son of Italian emigrants, he began studying to be a professional singer at the age of 16....
, Elvis Presley
Elvis Presley
Elvis Aaron Presley was one of the most popular American singers of the 20th century. A cultural icon, he is widely known by the single name Elvis. He is often referred to as the "King of Rock and Roll" or simply "the King"....
, Sophia Loren
Sophia Loren
Sophia Loren, OMRI is an Italian actress.In 1962, Loren won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in Two Women, along with 21 awards, becoming the first actress to win an Academy Award for a non-English-speaking performance...
, Errol Flynn
Errol Flynn
Errol Leslie Flynn was an Australian-born actor. He was known for his romantic swashbuckler roles in Hollywood films, being a legend and his flamboyant lifestyle.-Early life:...
, Burt Lancaster
Burt Lancaster
Burton Stephen "Burt" Lancaster was an American film actor noted for his athletic physique and distinctive smile...
, Kirk Douglas
Kirk Douglas
Kirk Douglas is an American stage and film actor, film producer and author. His popular films include Out of the Past , Champion , Ace in the Hole , The Bad and the Beautiful , Lust for Life , Paths of Glory , Gunfight at the O.K...
, Yul Brynner
Yul Brynner
Yul Brynner was a Russian-born actor of stage and film. He was best known for his portrayal of Mongkut, king of Siam, in the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical The King and I, for which he won an Academy Award for Best Actor for the film version; he also played the role more than 4,500 times on...
, Clark Gable
Clark Gable
William Clark Gable , known as Clark Gable, was an American film actor most famous for his role as Rhett Butler in the 1939 Civil War epic film Gone with the Wind, in which he starred with Vivien Leigh...
, Dean Martin
Dean Martin
Dean Martin was an American singer, film actor, television star and comedian. Martin's hit singles included "Memories Are Made of This", "That's Amore", "Everybody Loves Somebody", "You're Nobody till Somebody Loves You", "Sway", "Volare" and "Ain't That a Kick in the Head?"...
, Rock Hudson
Rock Hudson
Roy Harold Scherer, Jr., later Roy Harold Fitzgerald , known professionally as Rock Hudson, was an American film and television actor, recognized as a romantic leading man during the 1950s and 1960s, most notably in several romantic comedies with Doris Day.Hudson was voted "Star of the Year",...
, Jayne Mansfield
Jayne Mansfield
Jayne Mansfield was an American actress working both in Hollywood and on the Broadway theatre...
, Cary Grant
Cary Grant
Archibald Alexander Leach , better known by his stage name Cary Grant, was an English actor who later took U.S. citizenship...
, Paul Newman
Paul Newman
Paul Leonard Newman was an American actor, film director, entrepreneur, humanitarian, professional racing driver and auto racing enthusiast...
, Debbie Reynolds
Debbie Reynolds
Debbie Reynolds is an American actress, singer, and dancer.She was initially signed at age 16 by Warner Bros., but her career got off to a slow start. When her contract was not renewed, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer gave her a small, but significant part in the film Three Little Words , then signed her to...
, Joan Collins
Joan Collins
Joan Henrietta Collins, OBE , is an English actress, author, and columnist. Born in Paddington and raised in Maida Vale, Collins grew up during the Second World War. At the age of nine, she made her stage debut in A Doll's House and after attending school, she was classically trained as an actress...
, Peter O'Toole
Peter O'Toole
Peter Seamus Lorcan O'Toole is an Irish actor of stage and screen. O'Toole achieved stardom in 1962 playing T. E. Lawrence in Lawrence of Arabia, and then went on to become a highly-honoured film and stage actor. He has been nominated for eight Academy Awards, and holds the record for most...
and Sean Connery
Sean Connery
Sir Thomas Sean Connery , better known as Sean Connery, is a Scottish actor and producer who has won an Academy Award, two BAFTA Awards and three Golden Globes Sir Thomas Sean Connery (born 25 August 1930), better known as Sean Connery, is a Scottish actor and producer who has won an Academy...
.
At 38 he decided to start a new life in Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, setting out virtually penniless in an old milk truck to build a log cabin on the Canadian Pacific coast. Over his time in Canada he worked as a logger, assistant blaster and sea salmon fisherman but spent most of his time living alone and surviving mainly off the sea. This was where he began his wildlife studies tracking grizzly bears, cougars, caribou, bald eagles and killer whales, which over three years developed into the book Alone In The Wilderness, which was snapped up by Reader's Digest
Reader's Digest
Reader's Digest is a general interest family magazine, published ten times annually. Formerly based in Chappaqua, New York, its headquarters is now in New York City. It was founded in 1922, by DeWitt Wallace and Lila Bell Wallace...
and became a critically acclaimed best seller.
Heading back south to Hollywood Tomkies picked up the celebrity side of his life again socialising with stars like John Wayne
John Wayne
Marion Mitchell Morrison , better known by his stage name John Wayne, was an American film actor, director and producer. He epitomized rugged masculinity and became an enduring American icon. He is famous for his distinctive calm voice, walk, and height...
, Robert Mitchum
Robert Mitchum
Robert Charles Durman Mitchum was an American film actor, author, composer and singer and is #23 on the American Film Institute's list of the greatest male American screen legends of all time...
, Sammy Davis Jr and Steve McQueen
Steve McQueen
Terrence Steven "Steve" McQueen was an American movie actor. He was nicknamed "The King of Cool." His "anti-hero" persona, which he developed at the height of the Vietnam counterculture, made him one of the top box-office draws of the 1960s and 1970s. McQueen received an Academy Award nomination...
; during this time he was also offered a screen test by Doris Day
Doris Day
Doris Day is an American actress, singer and, since her retirement from show business, an animal rights activist. With an entertainment career that spanned through almost 50 years, Day started her career as a big band singer in 1939, but only began to be noticed after her first hit recording,...
, however, the wild kept calling and eventually he returned to the UK and moved to Eilean Shona
Eilean Shona
Eilean Shona is a tidal island in Loch Moidart, Scotland. The earlier Gaelic names was Arthraigh, meaning 'foreshore island', similar to the derivation of Erraid....
, a remote island off the west coast of 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...
. There he rebuilt a wood
Wood
Wood is a hard, fibrous tissue found in many trees. It has been used for hundreds of thousands of years for both fuel and as a construction material. It is an organic material, a natural composite of cellulose fibers embedded in a matrix of lignin which resists compression...
en crofthouse which had been used as a shelter for sheep and began observing and writing about Scottish nature including golden eagle, black throated diver, pine marten and Scottish wildcat.
The studies and writing continued at a small crofter's cottage called Gaskan on the shore of Loch Shiel
Loch Shiel
Loch Shiel is a 19.3 km2 freshwater loch, 120 m deep, situated 20 km west of Fort William in Lochaber, Highland, Scotland...
, which Tomkies named "Wildernesse", and where he cared for a variety of injured animals, tracked and studied golden eagles over a 300 square miles (777 km²) area for the government and was the first person to successfully breed the now critically endangered Scottish wildcat and return individuals to the wild.
Tomkies studied eagles in Canada, Scotland and Spain for 42 years (1967 to 2009) spending more than 3000 hours on precarious cliff ledges in his home made "invisible" hides for up to 38 hours at a time. Over his 20 years in the Highlands Tomkies revealed Scotland's rarest wildlife in his books to widespread acclaim from naturalists, conservationists, critics and even the Duke of Edinburgh;
"This book does more than describe a piece of wild country and its population of wild animals: it gives a picture of someone totally absorbed by his subject."
In 1988 he was recognised for his work by being elected an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland.
For eight years, Tomkies' only companion was his german shepherd dog, Moobli who assisted him in his wildlife tracking. After Moobli died Tomkies spent the next four years alone, completing his studies of golden eagles and rare Scottish species. He then spent five years in mountain ranges throughout Spain making two films and writing a book about species including brown bear, lynx, wolf, wild boar, vultures and eagles working out of a crumbling old villa with no glass in the windows or running water.
A keen interest in film making also developed throughout the experiences in Scotland and Spain, beginning with mountainous slogs carrying 60 lb (27.2 kg) of 16mm camera equipment, all the way up to modern miniDV cameras, Tomkies recorded twelve feature length films on wildlife with a focus on Scotland and the golden eagle. Three network TV programmes were made about his life and work in the wilds, the last of which "Wild Cathedral" was repeated seven times.
Today, Tomkies is based in a ramshackle farmhouse in southern England and is still writing books. He appeared in the documentary film Last of the Scottish Wildcats (Coffee Films 2006) and became the patron for a new charity, the Scottish Wildcat Association in 2009, who also recognised his achievements naming him an Honorary Member of the Association for life. Tomkies says his latest book, and first fictional novel, will be his last.