Walking with dinosaurs..& Stephen Fry

Dr Susie on dream jobs and finds

- EMMA PRYER

Working alongside national treasure Stephen Fry would be a bucket list dream for some people.

But then again, Dr Susie Maidment is not simply "some people".

Asked if starring in the new series Dinosaur with the 65-year-old actor was her biggest pinch-me moment, she grins: "I'd say that was excavating a 150 million-year-old long-necked, long-tailed Sauropod in Montana.

"I dug up its lower leg bone. It was just amazing to think I was the first person to touch it. That was the culmination of many childhood dreams," she says, with a joyful glint in her eyes.

Dr Susie is a busy working mum with an extraordinary career.

Forget any notion you may have of an aged male fossil expert poring over ancient relics in a dank basement.

At 41, she is principal researcher in the dinosaur team at London's Natural History Museum, curator of their extensive collection and one of the most renowned dinosaur experts in the world.

Tomorrow, thanks to the wonders of CGI technology, Stephen and Susie are transported 155 million years back in time to the first golden age of the dinosaurs - the Jurassic, when they grew into giants.