Search results for ""Author Mike Tomkies""

After giving up a hectic life as a journalist in Europe and Hollywood in the late 1960s to return to his boyhood love of nature, Mike Tomkies moved to Eilean Shona, a remote island off the west coast of Scotland. There he rebuilt an abandoned croft house and began a new way of life observing nature. He tracked foxes and stags, made friends with seals and taught an injured sparrow-hawk to hunt for itself. It was the indomitable spirit of this tiny bird that taught Tomkies what it takes for any of us to be truly free. Whether he was fishing, growing his own food or battling through stormy seas in a tiny boat, he learned that he could survive in the harsh environment. This is the astonishing story of daring to take the first step away from urban routines and embracing a harsh yet immensely rewarding way of life which, in turn, led Tomkies to an even more remote location and inspired an acclaimed series of books on various animals and the challenges and joys of living in remote places.

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In wildlife circles, Mike Tomkies is a legend - called 'The Wilderness Man'. But here he tells the story of the very different first half of his life - before the wilderness years. He describes his boyhood, both idyllic and traumatic, his days with an extraordinary gamekeeper, his first love of nature, and running away from home to join the Coldstream Guards where he became an army athlete and saw active service in Palestine. Then follows his years as a cub reporter and successful amateur cycle racer - with hilariously funny narrative. An attempt to sail around the world in 1952 with a motley crew ended in shipwreck with an arduous 400-mile tramp from Lisbon to Madrid. He describes his first real love, his provincial reporter years and progress to Fleet Street where, having landed a major scoop by gaining an interview with Ava Gardner after her divorce from Frank Sinatra, he was elevated into writing for a best-selling magazine's show business column. From then on he flies the world - Paris, Rome, Vienna, Madrid, Hollywood - getting 'scoop' interviews and having adventures with major movie stars. He has an amazing encounter with Mario Lanza, tracks down and spends three days with Elvis Presley at the time when he was an American soldier in Germany, and under strict orders not to speak to the press. He admits he became, for a time, a complete hedonist and was 'arrogant, conceited and totally insufferable', going through sports cars like a frustrated racing driver. His racy anecdotes about the other stars he met are fascinating - Sophia Loren, Errol Flynn, Burt Lancaster, Kirk Douglas, Yul Brynner, Clark Gable, Dean Martin, Rock Hudson, Frank Sinatra, Jayne Mansfield, Cary Grant, Paul Newman, Joan Collins, Peter O'Toole and Sean Connery are just a few who either reveal some of their secrets or give him unusual encounters. Tomkies describes how disillusionment finally sets in with both his work and himself - and why, at 38 he decides to start a new life and flies off to Canada. Long-demanded by Mike's numerous fans, this searingly-honest and wide-ranging adventurous tale of his first life, will be of huge appeal to a very wide audience including anyone interested in the stars, celebrities and their biographies. This is a book which has it all - true-life adventures and stories of the stars all laced with exceptionally funny anecdotes.

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When Mike Tomkies moved to a remote cottage on the shores of Loch Shiel in the West Highlands of Scotland, he found a place which was to provide him with the most profound wilderness experience of his life. Accessible only by boat, the cottage he renamed ‘Wildernesse’ was to be his home for many years, which he shared with his beloved German Shepherd, Moobli. Centred on different landscape elements – loch, woodlands and mountains –Tomkies describes the whole cycle of nature through the seasons in a harsh and testing environment of unrivalled beauty. Vivid colours and sounds fill the pages – exotic wild orchids, the roar of rutting stags, the territorial movements of foxes, otters and badgers, an oak tree being torn apart by hurricane-force gales. Nothing escapes his penetrating eye. His extraordinary insights into the wildlife that shared his otherwise empty territory were not gained without perseverance in the face of perilous hazards, and the difficulties and challenges of life in the wilderness are a key part of this remarkable book.

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After giving up a hectic life as a journalist in Europe and Hollywood in the late 1960s to return to his boyhood love of nature, Mike Tomkies found Eilean Shona, a remote island 'between earth and paradise' off the west coast of Scotland. There he rebuilt a rotting wooden crofthouse which sheep had used for shelter from the bitter Atlantic winds and began a new way of life, observing nature, that was to last to the present day. He tracked wildlife, stags, foxes, made friends with the seals, and taught a young injured sparrowhawk to hunt for itself. It was the indomitable spirit of this tiny hawk that taught Tomkies what it takes for any of us to be truly free. Whether he was fishing, growing his own food or battling through stormy seas in a small boat, he learned that he could survive in the harsh environment. This book, the beginning of a remarkable Scottish odyssey, has long been out of print until now - but one which has long been demanded by Tomkies' loyal readers. "Between Earth and Paradise" tells of an astonishing story - of daring to take the first step away from urban routines, which many of us only dream about - which led in turn to an even more remote location and his unrivalled series of books on the golden eagle, the wildcats he reared, and his faithful dog, Moobli. "Between Earth and Paradise" will be of immense interest, not only to Mike Tomkies' fans, but also to anyone with an interest in wildlife, the natural world and those with an interest in living self-sufficiently. Between Earth and Paradise is also an engrossing story which will transport the reader to share Mike's lonely but rewarding lifestyle.

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This is a boisterous, roller-coaster of a story about Mike Tomkies' extraordinary adventures after he quit his full-time career as a celebrity journalist and began working as a logger with the lusty men of the wild Canadian forests - men who led a free way of life now long gone. During his first enforced visit back to Hollywood to generate some funds, Tomkies' companion was Booto, a stray wild dog who had adopted him in the Canadian wilds and who enjoyed the attention of stars such as Cary Grant, Omar Sharif and Peter Finch during interviews. The two also travelled around Mexico and Belize, where Tomkies spent hours with Dean Martin on the outdoor location of "Five Card Stud", even photographing the star doing his own dangerous stunts. Tomkies was the first to test the new Tartan athletics track in Mexico City for the 1968 Olympics for the "Daily Express", much to the annoyance of the workmen on site!Mike and Booto climbed the Pyramid of the Sun, hacked through rough tracks to the ancient ruins of Palenque, and visited the terrifying Well of Sacrifice at Chichen Itza where the ancient Mayans sacrificed young humans, hearts torn out first, to assuage the rain god Chac. Back in Hollywood, Mike was invited to the Oscar awards ceremony where, even in his old truck, he was mistaken for Warren Beatty with compere Bob Hope joking that Beatty was so confident of winnings Oscars for Bonnie and Clyde he had brought a big truck to take them all away!After another year in the wilds of Canada, Tomkies left Booto behind and returned to Hollywood for more amazing experiences with major film stars. He went motorbiking in the Mojave Desert with Steve McQueen; spent days with and gained extraordinary insights into the life of the greatest box office star of all time, John Wayne; while Doris Day, 'America's sweetheart', offered him a film test! Tomkies had several feisty meetings with Hollywood's greatest maverick and wit, Robert Mitchum, who actually 'laid a joint' on him when he asked if Mitchum was still on pot! The book ends with Tomkies hiring North America's greatest Red Indian guide, Clayton Mack, when they went on dangerous treks deep in grizzly country and saw 21 bears in three days - and were lucky to escape with their lives. There is a final poignant farewell to old Booto as Tomkies leaves for his new life in the wilds of the Scottish Highlands.

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You thought he was retired, even dead? No, he is back! At the age of 86, Mike Tomkies is back doing what he does best - observing our rarest and most dramatic wildlife, unsuspected and from close quarters, and writing about it with the kind of intimate detail that has earned high acclaim from critics and conservationists. Within days of arriving back from five years of studying bears, wolves and lynxes in Spain, he is up a wild cliff in Cornwall watching three peregrine falcon chicks from hatching to flying stage. We can follow his astounding adventures over the next ten years as he obsessively searches all through Britain for that elusive 'small wild paradise' so many of us would also like to find. He lives in, but finally loses, no less than six new homes in that time and the complications and reasons why are both hilarious and sad. Even more fascinating is his continual obsessive quest to get up close and personal with nesting goshawks, buzzards and ospreys, as well as mammals like fishing otters, a fox family and he even feeds wild badgers by hand. At one remote farmhouse in the Borders, he learns how to handle a bulldozer, digs out his own 70-yard lake and stocks it with trout. Over three years there he raises ten barn owl chicks and establishes three breeding pairs in areas where they had long been absent. It was the most successful barn owl release at the time. There are many amusing anecdotes such as when he dreaded taking some of Prince Harry's classmates to 'otter bay' and then saw far more otters than when he had gone there on his own! Transcending all are his new studies and descriptions of hunting and nesting golden eagles, during which he passed his 3,050th hour in one of his home-made 'invisible' hides, and a huge female allowed him to bring much-needed meat to her chicks in their eyrie. The book ends with triumphant filming of the magnificent white-tailed sea eagles on Mull, hunting and sailing into their high nest with prey and feeding their chicks. Mike also achieved valuable publicity for the pioneering public sea eagle hide project on Mull.

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Mike Tomkies gives a remarkable picture of the whole cycle of nature around him, in a harsh and testing environment of unrivalled beauty. Vivid colours and sounds fill these pages - exotic wild orchids, the roar of rutting stags, a pair of dragonflies mating, the flight of the redwing, the territorial movements of foxes, otters and badgers, an oak tree being torn apart by hurricane-force gales. Nothing seems to escape his penetrating eye, to which the selection of his photographs in this book - some revealing little-known aspects of animal behaviour - immediately testifies. Yet Mike's extraordinary insights into the wildlife that shared his otherwise empty territory of 300 square miles are not gained without perseverance in the face of perilous hazards. Every pound of supplies (including heavy gas canisters) has to be manhandled in and out of his boat, which once sank beneath him in a storm. Thousands of miles of rock faces and hillside must be trekked each year in summer and winter, the tussock grass concealing sodden peat holes that will break an ankle. Hours on end, day and night, are spent in cramped hides on windy, precipitous ledges.A Last Wild Place is much more than the chronicle of a man who left city life in order to study the wilderness. It is a celebration of nature at its most rugged and spectacular in all Britain. Like the enormous ageing salmon he threw back because he felt he had no right to claim its life, Mike Tomkies reveals through his quest our urgent need to become retuned to natural rhythms if mankind is to regain a measure of health and sanity in a world bent on self-destruction.

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