It’s a long time since Les Wilson was a pupil at Ashley Road Primary School in Aberdeen or a trainee at Aberdeen Journals.
Yet, while he has travelled the world, written books and produced documentary series about everything from Bonnie Prince Charlie and the Scots at Waterloo to winning a Scottish Bafta for his involvement in a programme about Chernobyl, he has no plans to wind down at 74 – and has a great story to explain his attitude to age being a number.
As he said: “I’ve managed to make my living from my early teens doing things I enjoy. Why would I stop? A few years ago, I was on a tea plantation in southern India researching my book [Putting the Tea in Britain: How Scots Invented our National Drink] and found an old tea sorting machine, still working away, that had been made by a Scottish engineering company in Ceylon 90 years earlier.
“Amazed, I pointed it out to my guide. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘never resting, never rusting.’ And that has been my motto ever since.”
New documentary on wolves
Les lives on Islay, where he divides his time between working in television and creating books with the philosophy that genius is an infinite capacity for taking pains.
His wife, Jenni Minto is the SNP MSP for Argyll & Bute and serves as the Scottish Government Minister for Public Health and Women’s Health. And when this stakhanovite fellow isn’t filming, researching, editing or writing, he is a voracious reader and loves going out for walks with a “sheep-shy” Border Collie called Jim.
However, it’s animals of a different proportion which have occupied his attention in recent months and viewers will get the opportunity to watch his new documentary on the history of wolves in Scotland – and the argument for and against rewilding these controversial creatures in the Highlands – on BBC Alba.
Les has also investigated the turbulent life and times of Eric Blair – who most of us know better as George Orwell – who spent the last years of his life on Jura, a place where he overcame his previously passionate dislike of the Scots. And he has covered the story in depth of how war affected people in the Hebrides.
In short, he’s a beetle-browed journalist with a fascination for his compatriots who stayed at home and fought in conflicts and those who travelled to the other side of the globe to pour their heart and soul into different enterprises.
Picking up Weir’s Way with Tom
As he said: “It was always documentary that interested me, and an early job was Scotland’s Story, a 24-part history of Scotland for STV and Channel 4.
“I travelled far for that – to Canada, America, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, France, the Netherlands, and even England.
“The first documentary I made was with Tom Weir, following Bonnie Prince Charlie’s time on the run on the Outer Hebrides and Skye. I even went on to have a few rock climbing lessons with Tom. He was great fun and a good friend.”
Am Madadh-Allaidh, Les Wilson’s documentary about wolves, is being shown on BBC ALBA on September 26.
