Daily Post: The Paper for Wales from Wrexham, Clwyd, Wales • 19

Daily Post Wednesday May 5 1982 19 DAVID UTT1NC meets best-known champion of the birds Dougall snaps at dreaded twitchers LINDA AGRAN: "Womenare braver less into power of use to tourists too because we often underestimate the importance of our bird life to people from Europe and America If you take some of them to see colonies of our British sea birds their eyes absolutely pop out of their heads because apart from some fairly remote places in Norway they have nothing else like Enthusing about the nesting ledges of puffins and razorbills guillemots and black guillemots Bees head in Cumbria is the only place in England you will see he is still the same impeccable discretly-attired Robert Dougall who incredibly more than eight years ago last read the news He is approaching 70: think a man is as old as he feels and I certainly feel he said have been blessed with flood health which is marvelous and with a jolley good wife Nan to whom I nave been married for 35 years Even though she prefers cats to Currently he is waiting for a encyclopaedia of birds he has written (as usual without Hie aid of a typewriter: a bit of a rimitive to be pub-shed and looking forward to getting down to the Suffolk coast to enjoy our somewhat tardy spring There he will doubtless engage in what is fastest growing leisure pursuit I joined the RSPB in 1947 there were only about 5000 members Now if you include the Young Ornithologists there are half a million Disguised of being a few cranky people figures of fun with people thinking you go round disguised as a gorse bush or something it has become an interest that cuts across all classes and ages A sort of interdenominational thing far as he said enjoyment of birds is just an enrichment of life And we have so much in this country to ROBERT DOUGALL deplores people who And put like that who It is all to do Inevitably with bird-watching Mr Dougall likes watching wild birds and so do those In order to effectively you must be prepared to drop what you are doing at any hour of the day or night to dash off to some remote corner of the British Isles where the latest rare bird has had the misfortune to turn up Since the thrill of actually being the first to discover the rare bird is no longer available the satisfaction gained by the successful lies in adding its name to a list In essence it is no different to the train-spotter who adds The Flying to his notebook for the first time It may seem a strange pasttime to the uninitiated but for those involved it can be an addiction Gardens and fields get trampled weary birds are terrified and worst of all nesting sites sometimes disturbed to the point where rare breeding birds desert their eggs In Robert words the syndrome is would never go rushing about from one end of the country to another just to see some poor exhausted bird which only wants to be left he said fact there are some species (he sited two particularly large and colourful examples the hoopoe and the bee-eater) which might have bred in Britain by now if people had only left them Courteous Mr authority is strong although he regards his Interest as purely amateur Most people know him as the courteous doyen of the old school of BBC newsreading but he is also a former president of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and has written books about birds DOUGALL: Bit of a primitive His latest (Birdwatch Round Britain Collins £895) he hopes will introduce hordes of new bird-watchers to the richness of avian life in these isles With co-author Herbert Axell a former pioneering warden of the prestigious Minsmere reserve in Suffolk he has chosen and described the delights of over 20 favourite locations for enjoyable Encouragingly numbered among the selected spots are storm-tossed Bardsey Island and the wild mudflats of the Dee Estuary dividing Clwyd and the Wirral peninsula idea of the book was the lead on people with a f'eneral interest in birds by nstancing some of the best and most varied places they can see said Dougall who in a most un-twitch-ing manner spent two years checking and re-checking the sites were also bearing in mind the holiday aspects for families who may want to know more about the terrain around the reserves whether there are any castles in the area for example hope the book will be than men but this never comes through when represented on television think women in the audience are to be rooting for our ladies but I think men are going to be particularly comfortable watching it such a new area I know how they will always been Her Indoors if you like the wife without a life of her own wonderful about the scripts is that they contain an awful lot of humour: the women find their situation terribly funny is something I always find very strange about TV I do think women are generally a lot funnier I I Much TV she admits is guilty of perpetuating stereotyped ideas of women But Widows will not just be a 1 case of putting females in the sort of roles occupied up to now by men widows are not hardened criminals They have any money and in the i case of the widow of the leader of the gang siness picked up know what attracts iverpool playwright ng Rita packed them se and in the West after 700 perform-Russell admits to oint jn to see The Joke ayhouse where he directors and was or turn-out ot a play that would es but I thought it ng than the 20 per show Erpingham ipped audience wise why It got good I have thought word ve got people in But II had doubts about Rita while he was i stopped writing at if it was any good In the not only success So reaction have at there already It had three the other the play He new decided It an obscenely For event its success has surprised him but the Royal Shakespeare Company who commissioned it know why been such a Russell has no idea what sort of his play Stags and Hens will the Playhouse when it opens tomorrow night although it has proved popular a successful run at the Everyman years back and Russell went day to see a rep production of elsewhere in the country he and I have been described as the at the Playhouse which may not be completely The musical was due to be staged at the Playhouse this season but cash problems have meant it being held over to next season Russell says he too displeased as his work-load would have been even larger with that to get ready so soon Physically The musical is to be an expanded version of the play Blood Brothers which he wrote for the school-touring Merseyside Young Theatre No title has yet been decided although it may well remain as Blood Brothers worried people might feel cheated if having seen the earlier play they think the musical is something completely different Russell has a set writing routine at an office in Hope Street It is there that he sits down shortly after 9 am each day and writes for a full working day Scripts are originally written in long-hand then typed by Russell and finally sent off for a neat final script He claims he find it physically tiring although he has taken the precaution of buying a new writing chair following writing colleague Alan experience Bleasdale was suffering with terrible back problems until the trouble was traced to the chair he sat in to write Russell has looked at a couple of rehearsals of Stags and Hens but says been quite content to leave it in the hands of director Pip Broughton and the cast With such a team he did not need to get involved he says although he did have a part in choosing the cast In fact hers just managed to take himself and family off to the South of France for a couple of holiday can tell you it was great to get away for a PHILIP KEY movie version of Educating Rita supposed to star Michael Caine and Julie he announces The doubt is there because already had two movie projects that never came to fruition believe being made until I sit in the cinema and watch A colleague of his was asked to write 14 different movie scripts but only three actually got filmed Russell also has been writing a five-part play serial for Yorkshire Television called One Summer it deals with a couple of lads from the Dingle in Liverpool who run off to Wales where one of them That at least is due to start filming shortly Then a film company of which he is director which is planning various works for Channel Four Not to mention his work at the Playhouse plus the writing of a big musical for the theatre Russell says it has all been a little too much but matters just all came together am turning down work Obscenely tends to re-write some plays for productions but in this case he it did not need any such treatment was just as well as Russell is busy man these days example been doing some pre-production work on the planned.