The 4th, 5th  and 6th of November saw the annual Badger Conference and this year I was invited to host ‘An Evening with Bill Oddie’ – a dear friend of mine from the world of wildlife.

I had grown up watching Bill all the way through the 70’s and 80’s and loved his comedy. I followed him through his career as he moved into wildlife and finally as an animal advocate.

Having worked with Bill on a few projects before, I was thrilled to be interviewing a person who I knew as being someone not afraid to use his voice for the voiceless around the world. Bill is there walking with the Badger Monitors, he travels out to Malta to report back on bird persecution, he fronts campaigns for the League Against Cruel Sports and is there stopping the fox hunt and anything which involves wildlife crime.

The evening of the 5th got off to a swing and we followed on from a day where TV’s Mike Dilger had entertained and informed the conference with some presentations on badgers.

During our interview, Bill and I covered all manner of subjects from his life, including how he first became interested in wildlife, his transition to wildlife TV from comedy and his deeper feelings surrounding animal crime. The audience eagerly soaked up every odd Oddie moment and the evening finished off with a spontaneous musical rendition from our man himself.

I will always have a great admiration for this dear man, who I am privileged to call a friend of mine.