Historian Dan Snow
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
PAGE 78 C M Y K DAILY MAIL WeeKEND ‘I’m obsessed with preparing for the apocalypse. I don’t think we can survive a large solar flare’ York, then I’d finish the day looking at DEFINITE the stars from a raft floating 1,000 miles east of Newfoundland. The happiest moment you will cherish forever… The day I left a summer job in the Canadian Rocky Mountains ARTICLE when I was 18. To re-enter civilisation, I had to run along tiny trails, shouting We ask a celebrity a set of devilishly out to ward off grizzly bears, but I didn’t probing questions – and only accept have a trouble on my mind. The saddest time that shook your THE definitive answer. This week: world… In 2013, my wife lost our child six months into her pregnancy. broadcaster and historian Dan Snow The unfulfilled ambition that contin- The prized possession you value above The pet hate that makes your ues to haunt you… To read War And all others… My books. I have about hackles rise... Betraying Peace. I have got to get that sorted! 1,000 and each one evokes memories of children by discouraging The philosophy that underpins your what life was like when I read them. them from aiming high. life… Life is best organised as a series The biggest regret you wish you could The temptation you The unlikely interest that The crime you would commit knowing of adventures from a secure base. amend… Not taking up a rowing scholar- wish you could resist… engages your curiosity… I’m you could get away with it… I’d assassi- The order of service at your funeral… ship at University of California, Berkeley, Salt and vinegar crisps. obsessed with preparing for the nate warlords from Syria to the Congo. Just friends and family telling silly, after I finished at Oxford. It would have I ration myself to one apocalypse! I doubt our infrastructure The song that means most to you… weird stories. My ashes can be thrown packet a week because been amazing. Instead, I went to work could cope with a large solar flare. Slide Away by Oasis. I was 15 when it into the wind on the South Coast. with my Dad [broadcaster Peter Snow] at they’re so bad for you. The piece of wisdom you would pass came out in 1994 and my world was The way you want to be remembered… the BBC, but sometimes you face big The film you can watch opening up as childhood slid off me. on to a child… You will fail at lots of As someone who never took being decisions and there’s no wrong answer. time and time again… The Last Of things, but never let that stop you. The way you would spend your fantasy happy and alive for granted. The book that holds an everlasting res- The Mohicans with Daniel Day- 24 hours, with no travel restrictions... The Plug… Dan has produced a series of onance… One Hundred Years Of Soli- Lewis. The acting, story, look and The treasured item you lost and wish I’d spend all day with my wife Edwina history Apps. Find them in the Apple tude by Gabriel García Márquez. I sound are amazing. I’m fascinated by you could have again… The fearless- with our six-month-old son Wolf App Store or visit timelineww2.com. n read it when I was 17 and it filled me 18th-century America. ness of my 23-year-old self. When my strapped to my stomach and Zia in the As told to Rob McGibbon with a yearning to enter an The person who has influenced daughter was born [Zia, now three], I backpack. We’d watch dawn come up adult world that was exot- you most… My mum, Ann. went to Syria to make a programme on a kayak in Fiordland, South Island, ic, erotic and thrilling. She’s always struck a balance about the war and I realised I was New Zealand. Breakfast would be pas- being selfish. I have responsibilities The priority activity if between work and fun, com- tries in a cafe in Paris. We’d hike along now and shouldn’t have been running you were the Invisible passion and tough love. the South Downs then whizz around around a battlefield [Dan is now 36]. the Roman ruins in Libya. A speed boat Man for a day… I’d film the inti- The figure from history for would then take us to a lunch of local mate moments of the world’s whom you’d most like to buy a The unending quest that drives you delicacies in Byblos, Lebanon. After most powerful and pomp- pie and a pint… Horatio Nel- on… To see all the ancient ruins of that, we’d raft down the Columbia River ous men, then broadcast it. son. I’d love to experience past civilisations, particularly those in P in Canada, stopping off in Assiniboine HOTO Hopefully, it would take his legendary charisma. Central and South America. Provincial Park in British Columbia. I’d them down a peg or two. G He got seasick, so I’d RAPHS: R have a Kokanee beer there before give him a wide The poem that touches your soul… The event that altered the watching the sunset in Stone Town, berth at sea. Ulysses by Tennyson. It has a verse for E course of your life and charac- almost every situation we face in life. Zanzibar. We’d have a cocktail on the X, ALA ter… Losing the Boat Race with quayside in Portofino, Italy, before M Oxford in 1999. I realised that Left: Nelson. The misapprehension about yourself watching the Northern Lights in Scot- SHUTTY, life was not a golden progres- Above: Salt you wish you could erase… Nearly land. Then we’d have Beef Wellington and vinegar E everyone thinks that Jon Snow is my RSTOC sion from one success to crisps. Right: for dinner in a pub in Derbyshire with another and that I needed to Assiniboine dad. Dad is Peter and Jon is my first a glass or two of red wine. Edwina work harder. Provincial Park cousin once removed! and I would have a night out in New K NEXT WEEK PS... l John Craven on presenting Lara Pulver stars in Spooks movie The Greater Good – in cinemas from Simon Cowell’s new quiz Friday. Alan Ayckbourn’s comedy Communicating Doors with Imogen show Beat The Brain l Monty Don sings the Stubbs is at London’s Menier Chocolate Factory from Thursday. And praises of the Chelsea Flower Show l PLUS the new album from Mumford & Sons, Wilder Mind, is out Monday Britain’s best TV listings 78 weekend DAILY MAIL WEEKEND IS PUBLISHed BY ASSOCIATed NewSPAPERS LTD. PRINTed BY THE POLESTAR GROUP. RegISTERed AS A newSPAPER AT THE POST OFFICE. © ASSOCIATed NewSPAPERS LIMITed 2015. National 2 MAY.