Lee Durrell reflects on Gerald Durrell's centenary year
Friday 12 December 2025
The centenary year of Gerald Durrell is drawing to a close, but what a year it has been – a kaleidoscope of celebratory events, lectures, tours, interviews, music, theatre, art…even tea at Buckingham Palace!
Fittingly, we started on Gerry’s birthday on a cold day in January by placing a commemorative plaque on the wall of Les Augrès Manor, headquarters of Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust and Gerry’s residence since he started Jersey Zoo.
The Trust kicked off the festivities by organising a ‘Founder’s Trek’ in March, from Gerry’s birthplace in India to the grasslands of Assam where one of our most successful species recovery programmes – for the adorable pygmy hog, smallest member of the pig family – is going full steam ahead. Then in April our wonderful Patron, The Princess Royal, hosted a tea for our long-term supporters at Buckingham Palace, speaking with her usual warmth and knowledge about Gerry’s vision and the mission of the Trust.
Also in April we launched our GD100 appeal for funds to ‘future-proof’ Jersey Zoo, ensuring that our beloved zoo thrives for generations to come. The appeal is still running – think of what a wonderful Christmas gift to a loved one a donation in their name would be!
In the summer at Jersey Zoo we mounted a display of thousands of eco-friendly small sculptures of Gerry’s favourite wildflowers in the forecourt of Les Augrès Manor, each for sale and adding to the revenues of GD100. We worked with Jersey Post on a stamp issue featuring Gerry’s portrait painted by Jason Butler and a set of six stamps of photos of Gerry representing milestones in his life.
In September we put on our major fundraising activity for the centenary, the Founder’s Ball, at the RJHS, with an amazing performance by the eternally popular singer Lulu. In October, we collaborated with Music in Action to bring back to the stage The Durrell Suite by the late Derek Lawrence, which was first performed at Fort Regent in 2009, at the recently refurbished Jersey Opera House.
The final event put on by the Trust was a new twist to the now annual Durrell Lecture. This time we hosted two lectures, one at the Jersey Opera House in the presence of our Patron and one a week later in London at a charming venue, The London Library. The ‘Lecture’ consisted of two parts, one rather scientific and the other more light-hearted.
The science was delivered by Dr Mike Hudson, our Director of Conservation Knowledge, on the outcome of our eight-year conservation strategy, Rewild Our World. Mike quantified how well we had met the goals we set for 2025 when our Founder would have been one hundred years old. The answer was….superlatively! Gerry would have been so proud!
The other part was a conversation between me and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, who, it turns out, is a huge Durrell fan, having devoured Gerry’s books as a child. We talked about Gerry’s life and legacy, punctuated by amusing readings from the collection of Gerry’s writings, many never previously published, that I put together for the centenary. The book is called Myself and Other Animals, the title given by Gerry himself to the autobiography he was working on but never finished.
That brings me to how I personally celebrated the centenary. Essentially, I was on a yearlong ‘book tour’, promoting Myself and Other Animals (and the Trust at the same time, of course) at various literary festivals and in radio and print interviews. The most exotic was surely the Kolkata Literary Festival in India, where I gave two interviews on stage and signed books – Gerry is much loved in India! Closer to home was the Jersey Festival of Words where I was interviewed by the incomparable Rod McLoughlin, and the Corfu Literary Festival where I was interviewed by the brilliant environmental writer, Julian Hoffman. Most prestigious was probably the Hay-on-Wye Festival. The most unlikely was the Purbeck Film Festival where after my stage interview three short Durrell films were played and well received. The funniest was an interview with a writer called Tiffany Murray, who had written a book called My Family and Other Rock Stars, a hilarious account of her childhood as the young daughter of the chef to various rock bands of the ‘70s and ‘80s.
The last interview I did was a podcast with Nick Breeze, the grandson of Gerry’s sister Margo, so Gerry’s and my great-nephew. It seemed very apt that I ended the year with a member of ‘my family…’
As well as the book tour, I also was asked to speak on a number of occasions about Gerry’s vision and mission, the most poignant for me being the keynote address at the annual conference of the Association of British and Irish Wild Animal Keepers. The members are mostly the younger generation of zookeepers, just starting their careers, and I was filled with awe and admiration for the passion and dedication they show for their animals’ welfare and conservation – just as Gerry did as a young man.
Finally, in a totally new role for me, I inadvertently became an ‘impresario’, producing a concert in May and a play in September to celebrate the centenary in Gerry’s childhood home, Corfu.
The concert featured The Durrell Suite, as well as several animal-themed classical pieces, all beautifully and movingly performed by the Corfu Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Alkis Baltas, the charismatic Greek conductor, and the St Spiridon’s Youth Choir, led by Christina Kalliaridou, who brought her choir to Jersey for the performance in October. It took place in the iconic Church of St George in Corfu Town, which was packed – standing room only to late comers!
The play was Daniel Austin’s adaptation of Gerry’s classic book, My Family and Other Animals, first performed by the Jersey Arts Centre in Jersey and Corfu in 2007. We secured two slots at the newly renovated Mon Repos Amphitheatre – a glorious open-air venue at the palace where the Duke of Edinburgh was born. Hoping to attract local Corfiots, we arranged a huge pop-up inflatable screen to provide subtitles in Greek – it worked! Advertised extensively on social media, radio and tv, the amphitheatre hit capacity (about 450) on the first night and near capacity on the second.
One charming thing about such events in Corfu is that they are free to the public. The effort that went into putting on the concert and the play was, I feel, well worth it, as they brought Gerry’s name to the fore once again, not only to Greeks, but also to the numerous British who live in Corfu.
All in all, the many events and happenings of 2025 have had the desired effect: reminding people of Gerald Durrell’s vital message that the natural world is precious to us all and must be cherished and protected.