EPISODE 07: Becoming the Big Cat People – 'Angie: Girl With the Long Blonde Hair'

Welcome to The Big Cat People podcast! We're Jonathan and Angela Scott, award-winning wildlife photographers, authors and conservationists. We've have made our name documenting the lives of lions, leopards and cheetahs in the Masai Mara National Reserve in Kenya.

Today's episode is a continuation of our ten part series named 'Our Story: Becoming the Big Cat People'.

This episode is named, 'Angie: Girl With the Long Blonde Hair.' Despite realising some of my most treasured dreams, I had suffered from a condition known as dissociation - a feeling of unreality - that would sweep over me for days, weeks, months even. It begun in my final year at Christ's Hospital School in England, on through University in Northern Ireland well in to my 30s in Kenya. A turning point for my mental health issues was meeting Angela Bellamy in the late 1980s, the girl with the long blonde hair and beloved children Alia and David. Not only was I to come to know the joy of becoming a Father, I had never met anyone like Angela before: sublime in her beauty, the best listener and companion you could ever hope for, and the love of my life. Added to that was her upbringing. She was living my dream long before I set out overland from London in 1974 in search of a life amongst wild animals in savanna Africa. She was born in Alexandria in Egypt, raised in Dar es Salaam in Tanzania with the Serengeti as her family's favourite safari destination. We both loved art and photography and spending time in nature. By good fortune, another extraordinary female appeared in my life at this time: a leopard I named the Paradise female who in 1996 was to become Half-Tail of Big Cat Diary fame. Angela and I married in March 1992 atop the Olololoo Escarpment, 300 meters above the Mara's animal speckled plains. A year later we decided to buy a home of our own in a leafy suburb of Nairobi overlooking the Ngong Hills, the sublime view celebrated in Karen Blixen's evocative and poetic story Out of Africa.

This podcast series is a continuing effort to educate and inspire our audience. If you'd like to learn more about us, or to check out our latest collection of educational ebooks, please visit our website: www.bigcatpeople.com