The River: A Love Story, a New Life in the Country, and One Idyllic Year Filming Otters

by Philippa Forrester

When Philippa Forrester and her partner, wildlife photographer Charlie Hamilton James, decide to get out of the rat race and set up home in an old mill-worker's cottage on a river in the heart of Worcestershire, they get considerably more than they bargained for. Populated by otters, kingfishers, and water fowl, the river is teeming with life and the young couple soon fall in love with it. But it is the otters that really capture the couple's imagination, and they soon become absorbed in researching and filming this timid and endangered species. The River is the utterly captivating and personal story of their attempts to get a commission for and make a film about the families of otters, while at the same time having a baby, moving house, and pursuing their careers. Written with endless charm and real affection, featuring a cast of memorable characters, The River is packed with hilarious stories spanning floods, chicken-keeping, and wildlife-watching.

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir, Natural History, Nature, Biography

256 pages, Hardcover

First published July 1, 2004

About the author

Philippa has been a well known TV and radio presenter and producer working primarily for the BBC for many years. She has always had a passion for the natural world and competed a part time degree in Ecology and Conservation while working on TV. She spent seven years living in Jackson hole Wyoming where she remotely completed a masters degree in writing and has continued to write, mainly about the natural world, for both adults and children

Reviews

[Richard · Rating 5 out of 5]

A truly underrated book. Loved it. Perhaps it's because I dream of moving West and living the good life by a river full of Kingfishers and wildlife. It's well written and consistently interesting throughout. Given that Phillipa isn't an author as such, hats off to her! The TV series is also well worth a watch.

[Alayne · Rating 4 out of 5]

A lovely story of exactly what the subtitle says. A fascinating look at life on a British river for a new couple and their brand new baby and the trials and tribulations of filming a documentary at the same time as raising the baby.

[Anne Cotton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting and enjoyable book. Fairly slow paced so it’s a chilled out read. Made me want to watch the documentary which I’ve now found online so I’m looking forward to that next.

[Foggygirl · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bit of an impulse buy but was a good impulse, great read.

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is by *Philippa* Forrester the TV presenter not Helen Forrester the Liverpool family saga author. It's an account of the making of a film about the Wiltshire river next to the house where she and wildlife cameraman Charlie Hamilton-James live notable for otters and kingfishers. I haven't actually seen the TV programme but I did find the series of later films they made, by which time the delightful baby Fred had two younger siblings, beautiful, funny and heartening, a brilliant combination of superb wildlife programming and the reality of family life in which otters and Mario Kart hold equal fascination. We also have a gorgeous coffee table volume of Hamilton-James' kingfisher photography.

I enjoyed this book which starts at the beginning in two ways - with Charlie's love of this particular river since he was a boy, and with the story of how his and Philippa's relationship and setting up home by the river came about. It's a fairly straightforward tale of wildlife film making folk and rural life. The kingfishers and the otters are the stars but Mr Smooth the trout, the ducks and the chickens are given a goodly piece of the action and it was nice to see mink treated as troublesome but undemonic. Unsurprisingly, nature is red in tooth and claw.

I enjoyed seeing Fred grow up moving from his first word "otta" to providing his own unique commentary over the final film when everyone was gathered to watch the broadcast.

[Kris Worsley · Rating 5 out of 5]

While not know primarily to the public for her writing skills, Philippa Forrester writes beautifully, and the book not only tells a great story, but kept me hooked from beginning to end.

The story is of her meeting the man who would become her husband, wildlife film-maker Charlie Hamilton James who has since become something of a legend as one of the knoweldgeable Otter and Kingfisher experts in the business. They move in together, start a family, and most significantly for the narrative of the book, devote a year of their lives to filming and producing a documentary on the river that runs past the back of their house.

It's a wonderful story, beautifully told from the point of view of a city-girl who's learning to love nature in the most minutest of details.

[Jayne Gray · Rating 4 out of 5]

Highly educational and enjoyable. Weirdly otters keep appearing in my life since I read this! I've heard the documentary she si writing about is excellent. The book is good, but there is room for improvement.

[Nick · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lovely book, interesting, part biography part nature diary and witty, well written overall a good read and insight into their lives living next to the river.