Ben Fogle is used to sitting down with his wife and two children at the kitchen table to tentatively float the idea of a risky trip.
The presenter, author and adventurer – back on TV this week with a new series of Channel 5’s New Lives In The Wild – has rowed the Atlantic, raced to the South Pole, climbed Everest and visited remote locations in 40 countries during 11 years of the show.
This time he wanted to gauge his clan’s thoughts on a trip to war-ravaged Ukraine, not for the cameras but simply because he felt he must go.
The 49-year-old had filmed in the country before, visiting the Chernobyl nuclear exclusion zone for another show, when he made friends with locals who had returned there to live following evacuation after the 1986 disaster.
The Russians occupied the area early in the conflict, only leaving when they realised they were being poisoned with radioactivity by digging trenches in the highly contaminated site.
Ben desperately wanted to see his friends and help them, especially the many elderly folk who live there.
He has not spoken widely about his trip in September, when he escorted out security vehicles he had personally donated and made stops in Bucha and Irpin, scenes of horrific atrocities.
Ben still sounds deeply moved.
“They cried when I came to their houses with food for them, and yet they gave me fresh produce,” he recalls.
“It was one of the most profound trips I have had, it took me a while to decompress. I found it a harder proposition than crossing the Antarctic or climbing Everest, to be with people who had no choice.”
he adds: “On the train out, seeing the men of age being marched off because they are not allowed to leave, it really hit me, that loss of liberty. I have never seen or known that before.”
His friends escaped the worst violence but had been punched, slapped and robbed. Many remained depressed.
Yet they still retained a spark of humour, Ben recalls.
“There were plenty of humorous stories of Russians terrified of finding themselves in the Chernobyl exclusion zone,” he says.
“They had obviously heard at school about the dangers of this place and the elderly women teased them that their willies would fall off, that they better get out of there because the elderly people had built up a resilience but they would fall sick.”
Nevertheless, Ben was disturbed to see the land littered with mines, booby traps and even saunas left in the Russian trenches and dugouts.
“I felt it was important that I saw firsthand what had happened. It takes your breath away to see the scale of destruction, the burnt-out buildings,” he says.
“I went to the church in Bucha, where the mass grave had been found, to show my respect. It was important to me to see and understand.”
It put into context his TV work, which is sometimes risky and arduous although largely fun. But he hopes a show like New Lives In The Wild can also make an important contribution.
In it, he visits individuals who live off-grid in the remotest locations, and who, he says, hold the key to happiness in living simpler, more contented lives.
In the new series, which includes the 100th episode, Ben meets all kinds of people – from an actress to a homeless person – who show how it’s possible to change the way you live.
“I think they have got it right, we have it wrong,” he says. “But the difference is they are brave and foolhardy enough to follow their instincts.
“Their lives aren’t necessarily easier or more straightforward, they are just simpler and happier.”
He would love to be one of them.
Before meeting his partner Marina, while she was walking her dog in a London park, and marrying her in 2006, Ben made his name as a castaway on the 2000 BBC reality show of the same name.
He admits he was very close to starting a more reclusive life.
“I had looked at islands, lighthouses, lots of options all around the world,” explains Ben, whose head became filled with ideas when he went away filming.
“My wife used to dread me coming back because I would be all enthusiastic, suggesting we sell up and move to an island in Norway or to a little camp in Canada.” Having children, Ludo, 13, and Iona, 11, brought the couple stability although Ben admits that he is still torn.
He’s genuinely just happier in a wild location and one day in the future is still keen to immerse himself.
“When I have a low day, I have thought I would really like to just give this up. It’s just that other things do get in the way. Life gets in the way.
“That doesn’t mean I’ve conceded. I still pride myself in bringing up my children in a happy, family-orientated, natural way despite the fact we are not living in a cabin in the woods.”
Before the pandemic the family moved from London to the country, where they now live surrounded by fields.
When we speak, Ben happens to be climbing a hill on a family walk.
He and the kids grow vegetables and keep horses, dogs, ducks and guinea pigs.
It sounds perfect, and he enjoys the balance of being able to travel for two weeks of every month.
Generally, that’s the family’s rule but he is not without guilt.
As he puffs up the hill – something surprising to hear given his TV exertions – Ben reveals that he is due to leave for Antarctica for another Channel 5 show.
He plans to retrace Captain Scott and Ernest Shackleton’s steps, wearing the same clothes and using the equipment they had around a century ago on their doomed Antarctic expedition.
It means he won’t see his family for a month. “I’m away a lot and that is really hard, especially as the children grow up. I don’t want to miss out on their lives,” he says.
“We have made it work, it’s what the children and Marina have always known, but I do have guilt, of course.
“But when I am here I am very present. We are very disciplined with those ground rules – when I am home that is what I do.”
When he’s not picking the children up from school or helping them with homework – which he loathes – Ben still uses his family time to do what he does best: walk and explore, but this time with his wife and children in tow.
It’s a tamer kind of wild.
- Ben Fogle: New Lives in The Wild returns to Channel 5 on Tuesday at 9pm
