Fingers in the Sparkle Jar: A Memoir

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I wish more than anyone, I had full control but, even after living with this type of bipolar (II) which first started in my late teens, I don’t always realise I’m having episodes immediately and it can take someone to ‘point it out’ to me. It's a pretty dark read with themes of suicide and the like and Packham ends up killing most things he comes into contact with.

Blend ‘A Kestrel for a Knave‘ with ‘Saturday Night and Sunday Morning‘ and then dim the lights to make it darker and that’s where this book takes you. uk and we will contact you to make suitable arrangements to either refund the sale or replace the faulty goods. Packham has a thing for adjectives and spends his time creating magical scenes and situations with very little in the way of concrete narrative in between. Me, I'm not a fan of the abstract style so I found this very hard to get on with, skimming the lengthy descriptions more often than not.He is a confirmed outsider - almost overwhelmed - but determined to do things his way, on his terms. I did hear this book wasn’t an ordinary, chronological memoir, but even then I wasn’t prepared for the writing style in this. In 2011, he was awarded the British Trust for Ornithology's Dilys Breese Medal for his 'outstanding work in promoting science to new audiences', and in 2016 he won the Wildscreen Panda Award for Outstanding Achievement, for his contribution to wildlife filmmaking. I got this book, as I expect many, or indeed most, of the others who own it did, because I'm a fan of Chris Packham.

As an adult, Chris was diagnosed with Asperger syndrome, which may explain his social awkwardness as a child and intense obsession with nature; an obsession that he managed to forge into a successful career. It feels wrong to critique this, as you can tell it’s written with a deep love and affection for these animals, but although I admire his enthusiasm it did make this book a struggle to get through. In other parts of the book he sees himself as he would have appeared through other people's eyes (the ice cream man, or an elderly neighbour). In fact to be honest I’ve been ‘a bit ill’ for a couple of weeks – and on such occasions when I start being ill, one of the bizzare symptoms is that I suddenly decide that it would be a great idea, to either Talk or Tweet incessantly, make my way through dozens of wildlife blogs or articles, make potentially annoying, embarrassing and daft entries on some poor unsuspecting persons blog.When other children were playing together in the street, young Chris was out collecting bugs in jars, birds eggs, wings, pellets and other specimens for his curious collection. It's had something of the opposite effect on me though, while I still bought the book I now don't think I could watch Chris Packham on TV. Furthermore, whilst these segments are set in the 60’s and 70’s, there are also sections of short conversations with his therapist from 2003-2004 which have been included in all italics. The author has Asperger Syndrome, a kind of autism often making social relationships and communication difficult.

I could identify with all the little retro things he spoke about concerning obsolete brands and TV programmes that were all the rage. He is best known for the BAFTA-winning The Really Wild Show and fronting BBC's Springwatch and Autumnwatch. What I especially enjoyed about this memoir was the feel of a kid growing up in the sixties and seventies. I would have liked the book to cover his whole life up to where he is today but instead it was mainly his childhood. Well, that's not true, there's some small substance there in the story of how the author (I think it was the author, I'm not certain) stole a baby kestrel from its nest and took it home to keep.I wish there was more about the wildlife rather than random perspectives of other people on Chris and his actions. And so I suppose I’m asking, that you forgive any potential nonsense I may inadvertently type, on what I do appreciate to be a brilliant, serious and sensible blog.