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Ben Fogle

Born in 1973, the son of actress Julia Foster and broadcast vet Bruce Fogle. After completing his A-levels at Bryanston School in Dorset, Ben went on to spend a gap year in Quito Ecuador where he helped in an orphanage and taught English. Ben went on to spend a second year on the Mosquito Coast of Honduras and Nicaragua where he worked alongside the American Peace Corps on a Turtle conservation project.

Ben eventually settled down to a degree in Latin American Studies at the University of Portsmouth where he also enrolled as an officer in the Royal Naval Reserve, as a midshipman, Ben was deployed to Norway, Spain, Gibraltar and France and as Officer of the Watch aboard HMS Blazer, Fogle was responsible for escorting HMY Brittania into Portsmouth Harbour for the last time.

After a year at the University of Costa Rica, Ben found himself the picture editor for society glossy magazine, Tatler, for whom Ben worked for just over a year before he volunteered to be marooned on an uninhabited Scottish Island for a year as part of BBC 1's Castaway 2000.

Ben spent a year on the remote island of Taransay, where he and thirty five other men women and children became totally independent and self sufficient.

Ben returned to reality as the roving correspondent for a glossy magazine. Assignments took Ben to Japan, the Falklands, Nepal, Zambia, Bali, East Timor, the Arctic Circle and Barbados, and as a regular presenter alongside John Craven and Michaela Strachen on BBC 1's Countryfile.

He went on to co-present BBC 1's Animal Park with Kate Humble, which returns to our screens for a fourth series in the Autumn.

Ben has presented numerous other programmes including Big Screen Britain, One man and His Dog, Inside Out, Death By Pets, What Are We Like, the Abyss Interactive, Heaven and Earth, and Holiday and has made numerous TV appearances including So Graham Norton, Celebrity Ready Steady Cook, The Big Read - Battle of the Books, Restoration, The Kumars at No 42 and Rise.

He recently recorded his first talking book, Anna Sewell's, Black Beauty available from CSA Telltape at WH Smith's

Ben has also become a regular writer for numerous magazines and newspapers including The Times, The Guardian, The Sun, The Express, Glamour magazine and The Evening Standard, and he has recently published his first travel book, The Teatime Islands, Journeys to Britains Faraway Outposts, published by Penguin, Michael Joseph

Ben has been shortlisted as GQ personality of the year and nominated as best new talent at the RTS Midland awards, most recently his book has been shortlisted for the WH Smith's peoples award.

Ben is a regular skier and a keen horseman. Ben also has his NAUI/PADI SCUBA diving certificate, his coastal skipper sailing certificate and is a qualified dingy sailor. Ben is fluent in Spanish and is currently undergoing his PPL - Private Pilots License, training.

Ben's travel writing & photography passions have recently culminated in a publication of his first book by Penguin entitled The Teatime Islands. Penguin have also commissioned Ben's next book about offshore Britain.
Ben Fogle ,
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