Losing a husband when you are in your early forties and when your children are
only nine and three is tough in anyone’s book. It was certainly never part
of Terri Irwin’s outlook. The Australian wildlife television star Steve
Irwin appeared to be invincible. This was a man who for millions summarised
the indomitable Australian male; a man capable of putting food into a
crocodile’s snapping jaws while he cuddled his month-old son or tangling
with all that is nasty in the Australian bush, grinning as he did so.
In his wildlife shows, which were syndicated across the world, Steve Irwin
was, if not the complete opposite of David Attenborough, a radically
souped-up version of him. There he stands, on the cover of Terri’s
autobiography, broad-shouldered and strapping in safari gear, sporting stout
boots and thick socks. Not the sort of man that could be felled by a fish;
but he was. While on a diving trip in September 2006 Irwin was hit in the
chest by a stingray’s barb, a freak, fatal accident that so traumatised
Australia, Terri was offered a state funeral for him.
“We refused that,” she says. “It wasn’t what Steve was all about. Steve lived
and died a very humble person. With a very big persona.” A neat, blonde
woman of 43 who seems content to wear a safari outfit even on a winter’s day
in central London, Terri Irwin is a God-fearing American raised in Oregon.
At 27 she was happily ensconced in the top left-hand corner of the United
States doing wildlife rescue work, but on a holiday in Australia she
happened to visit a small wildlife park and was captivated by the zookeeper
in the reptile enclosure.
Steve seems to have wooed Terri with a combination of physical allure and a
unique chat-up line. “He explained to me how amazing the crocodile was. For
someone who had nothing to do with crocodiles I was so impressed with his
love for these creatures. That captivated me. And although he was a big man,
with that Tarzan-like attractiveness about him, it was when you talked to
him that was so drawing. I wanted to sit down and hear more stories.”
Eventually Terri moved to Australia and married her “wildlife warrior”. They
even went on a crocodile-trapping honeymoon, immortalised in the television
series The Crocodile Hunter.
Not everyone was as crazy about Irwin’s manner with crocodiles (pinning them
down single-handed was a key skill) as his wife or indeed his burgeoning
audience. When Irwin died, Alastair Fothergill, the producer of classic BBC
wildlife series such as The Blue Planet, said Irwin’s attitude was “as
different from what we do as it’s possible to get. Let’s face it, Steve was
a showman. Yes, he introduced a lot of people to natural history, but his
basic stock in trade was, ‘Aren’t I brave, and aren’t animals dangerous?’ ”
Germaine Greer likened him to a lion tamer.
His widow calmly swats away such petty cavils: “What he was showing off was
the animals. Steve hadn’t honed his skills being a TV presenter. He happened
to be this wildlife warrior who made good television. What you saw was what
he was, and it happened to make good TV.” Feeding a crocodile while holding
your tiny baby, though? Great television, but I can’t quite see Attenborough
or even Bill Oddie being up for such a stunt. Terri sighs. “We took both of
our children in and around crocodiles from a very early age. And Steve held
Robert to his chest, and fed the crocodile with the other hand. He did the
same with Bindi when she was a month old.”
Yes, but wasn’t there something wildly irresponsible, in a Michael
Jackson-esque ‘Let’s dangle the baby out of a hotel window’ manner, about
it? “It was regarded as normal and natural for someone who had a zoo to
involve the wildlife with their children,” Terri replies soberly. “Just as,
say, a drover might put his child on the back of his horse.” Well, sort of.
A more persistent critique, however, concerns the way Bindi, the Irwins’ elder
child, is perceived as being raised. Her speech at her father’s nonstate
funeral (watched by an estimated 300m viewers) was so measured, and her
burgeoning TV career seems so expertly managed, that many fear she has been
forced to prioritise a 90-minute stage show (Bindi and the Crocmen), a
26-episode television series (Bindi the Jungle Girl) and appearances on
American chat shows over, well, being a nine-year-old.
Terri sighs a little and then reheats a series of well-rehearsed responses.
“Bindi has a wonderful ability to be relaxed around a camera. She has no
fear of public speaking. I think these are great gifts. I’m not grooming her
to be a media star. I’m grooming her to be a wildlife warrior. Bindi has
always wanted to be like her daddy.”
Yes, but nine years old is rather young to be a fully fledged version of her
daddy, is it not? “It’s a wonderful gift, empowering your children. When I
was Bindi’s age I’d had a bank account for three years. I started a
retirement account when I was 18. I didn’t think that was weird. I thought
that was smart.”
We go on like this for quite some time. “Parenting is an individual thing.
Bindi has the wonderful opportunity with her TV programme to decide what she
wants to say about conservation. It’s not media pressure; it’s natural
curiosity . . . not all children have the advantage of growing up with a
camera around them or living in a zoo.”
Well, all right, the idea of growing up in a zoo does seem rather wonderful.
“When my kids walk down to school in the morning,” Terri says quietly, “they
walk through the parrot aviary and the kangaroo area, and the elephants are
walking down and Bindi will stop and dance with her favourite elephant. It’s
a beautiful life, charmed and special. We don’t live in Hollywood. We live
in Beerwah, Queensland, population 4,000.”
What does the future hold? “I don’t know. I feel as in love with and as
married to Steve as before I lost him. I don’t feel lonely. I feel lonely
for Steve. I have two bubbly children and I live in the middle of a zoo. And
the accident was so utterly an accident. The last time someone was killed
this way in Australia was in 1945. It was such a fluke.
“I find that a message as well. If someone so strong and confident can have
this happen to him, we all need to take measure of our lives and not put off
doing things until we retire or we have enough money or are smart enough or
thin enough or have enough time. We need to really prioritise our lives.”
