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Douglas Scott Botting (born 22 February 1934) is an English explorer, author, biographer and TV presenter and producer. He wrote biographies of naturalists Gavin Maxwell and Gerald Durrell (the former also being a personal friend). He was the inspiration behind and writer of the 1972 BBC comedy show ''The Black Safari'', a role-reversal comedy show with Africans touring England. He has also featured in numerous other BBC programming, including ''Under London Expedition'' exploring the London sewerage system, as part of the BBC2 nature series ''The World About Us''. He has written numerous World War II and early aviation books for Time Life Books. Botting took part in the first balloon flight over Africa, with Anthony Smith. ==Biography== Botting was born in Kingston upon Thames, Surrey, lived in and went to school in Worcester Park. Having witnessed the London Blitz first-hand, he went on to make documentaries and write historical records of World War II and aviation. Botting got an early flavour of travel when he worked as an infantry subaltern for the King's African Rifles in Kenya, as part of his National Service. He went on to study English at St Edmund Hall, Oxford University, during which time he undertook a pioneering exploration of the little-known island of Socotra in the Indian Ocean. His first book, ''Island of the Dragon's Blood'', is an account of this trip. During Oxford and post-Oxford years, he volunteered and worked in a variety of positions, including as a paramilitary ambulance unit member during the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, as a private tutor to the Crown Prince of Nepal, as a worker in a leper colony in Biafra, and as a trainer for ex-head-hunter tribes undergoing re-training in the Venezuelan rain forest. However, he chose documentary filmmaking, and investigative journalism as his career. As a BBC Special Correspondent to the former USSR he reported news events like the first cosmonauts' homecoming, and Fidel Castro's state visit, and was the first person from West of the Iron Curtain since the Russian Revolution of 1917 to travel voluntarily among the nomadic reindeer tribes of Arctic Siberia and the Gulag. Botting went on to make documentary films for organisations including National Geographic, BBC, Time Life and Royal Geographical Society. Among his other occupations is that of writing: Botting wrote a series of Time Life Books on World War II, early aviation and maritime vessels. His foray into investigative journalism includes several other World War II books, including the best-selling ''Nazi Gold: The Story of the World's Greatest Robbery - And Its Aftermath''. His back-to-back biographies of Gavin Maxwell and Gerald Durrell have also earned him praise. He is the father of Anna Botting, newsreader. His former wife is the broadcaster and company director Louise Botting, CBE. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Douglas Botting」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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