M
I. The Child of London and the Blitz
y life began in London, 1934, under a sky that would soon be
filled with the smoke of war. My father, Mortimer Herbert
Morris-Goodall, gave me a toy chimpanzee named Jubilee, a
gift that my mother's friends thought would give me nightmares.
Instead, it became my most cherished companion. During the war, we
moved to the coastal town of Bournemouth. It was there, under the
watchful and supportive eye of my mother, Vanne, that I began my
lifelong observations of the natural world. I remember spending five
hours in a hen-house just to see where the egg came from. Vanne didn't
scold me for being missing; she sat and listened to the wonder in my
voice. That support was the seed from which my entire career grew.
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