Saba's Seventh Heaven

Raised with the elephants, born into the wonders of the natural world – BBC presenter, wildlife expert and conservationist Saba Douglas-Hamilton says she could never have been anything else

GROWING UP running free in the African bush and meeting her first elephant as a babe-in-arms, there was little chance Saba Douglas-Hamilton would end up dedicating her life to anything else.

Averacious and determined conservationist and BBC wildlife presenter, she works tirelessly to protect the magnificent creatures she spent her childhood with and to remind the world of our collective responsibility for the planet.

“I didn’t have a chance of being a ballerina or a banker, not with two such damn hardcore conservationists as parents and growing up with elephants. I never could have escaped that, nor did I want to. Everything should be about conservation – it’s the air we breathe, the water we drink.” This month she brings her live show A Life with Elephants to the stage in King’s Lynn and as well as talking about her career as an adventurous wildlife presenter for the BBC, Saba will also tackle some important conservation issues and will share some of the incredible stories of her childhood in Africa.

Saba’s name means ‘seven’ in Kiswahili; she was born in the Great Rift Valley in Kenya on June 7, on the seventh day of the week, and became the seventh grandchild in the family.

Her father Iain was a leading zoologist and conservationist and she and her sister Mara spent their early years absorbing life in the bush, learning bush-lore from rangers and speaking Kiswahili as their first language.

And of course, the elephants were an ever present feature – she had her first encounter with an elephant called Virgo as a six-week-old baby while in her mother Oria’s arms. Stretching out her trunk, Virgo gave Saba a long sniff before coaxing her own calf over, in a show of trust, introducing her baby in return.