Kate's frank and funny tale of saving a small part of Britain's farming heritage.
Kate's Story
2013
Book Launch! Humble by Nature: Life, lambs and a dog called Badger
2010
Humble by Nature
Kate and Ludo take over a former council farm in Monmouthshire and launch Humble by Nature - a working farm offering rural skills courses run by local experts.
2010
Launch of Lambing Live
Lambing Live sees Kate joining the Beavan family on their farm close to where Kate lives during one of the busiest and most stressful times in the sheep farming year. Springwatch and Autumnwatch also back on screens with Kate.
2009
Kate appears on Who Do You Think You Are?
Kate is the subject of one of the hugely popular Who Do You Think You Are? programmes. After confessing to knowing almost nothing about her family, Kate went on to discover extraordinary tales of honour and courage on both sides of the family. ‘I’ll never be able to live up to ancestors like those!’ she said.
2009
Filming lambs and dogs!
Kate was joined by Chris Packham on Springwatch and also travelled to Ireland to film her second series of One Man and His Dog.
2008
The first animals to arrive!
A smallholding wouldn’t be a smallholding without animals. Kate and Ludo adopt Badger, a mongrel from the local RSPCA, two donkeys, Lawrence and Bertie, from HAPPA, acquire various chickens, ducks and geese and two Kune Kune pigs called Duffy and Delilah.
2008
Filming for the Frankincense Trail
As well as Springwatch and Autumnwatch, Kate spent much of the year in the Middle East filming the Frankincense Trail. This ancient trade route took her from Oman, through Yemem, the little known Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Israel and finished in Bethlehem on Christmas Eve.
2007
Hottest Place on Earth
Kate travels to the Danakil Depression, a remote part of Ethiopia to film the series ‘Hottest Place on Earth’.
2007
Kate and Ludo leave London for a smallholding in rural Wales
Shown here with dogs Badger and Bella who arrived a little later
2007
Climate Change: Britain Under Threat with David Attenborough
Kate gets to work with her hero, David Attenborough.
2006
Seawatch and the front cover of the Radio Times!
Over the Summer of 2006, BBC1 broadcast a series of programmes about the sea. Kate wrote and presented a programme about the state of Britain's sea called Seawatch and got her first front cover of the Radio Times.
2006
First Autumnwatch!
Again with Bill Oddie and Simon King, followed by a book of the series.
2004
Springwatch
In 2002, Kate paired up with bird-watching ex-Goodie Bill Oddie and wildlife cameraman Simon King to do a week of live wildlife programmes from gardens in Bristol. Wild In Your Garden was followed by Britain Goes Wild, which in 2004 became Springwatch. Springwatch has now run for 3 years, become a huge success, regularly getting between 3 and 4 million viewers a night.
2004
First series of Wild in Africa
Kate went back to her beloved Africa with Ben Fogle, to make Wild in Africa for BBC2. They returned to Namibia in 2005 to make a second series. The third ‘Wild’ series was filmed last year in California. Wild on the West Coast will be broadcast later in 2007.
2002
Return to The Abyss
To be followed in 2004 by Amazon Abyss
2001
The Abyss
Kate joined Peter Snow and underwater cameraman Mike de Gruy to present BBC’s The Abyss. She descended 300 meters (1000 ft) underwater in a submarine, in search of the rarely seen six-gilled shark. Kate’s excited reaction when they actually found it was one of the highlights of the series.
2000
The Essential Guide to Rocks
Co-presented with Ray Mears
2000
Country File
Kate becomes a regular contributor.
2000
Rough Science
In 2000, Kate presented a brand new series, Rough Science, in which a group of hard-nut scientists were plonked in the middle of nowhere all round the world, and given a series of complex scientific tasks to accomplish using only the most basic of materials. This was such a success that the team went on to make a total of six series.
2000
Tomorrow's World
Co-presented with Adam Hart-Davis
2000
Top Gear
Co-presenting with Quentin Willson
2000
City Hospital
Co-presenting with Matthew Kelly
1999
The Salt Train
Wanderlust and a curious desire to cross the Sahara desert took Kate and husband Ludo to Mali. They travelled by camel with a group of semi-nomadic Berabiche tribesman to the distant salt mines of Taoudenni, 1,000km north of Timbuktu. The journey took 35 days; the nights were bitterly cold, day time temperatures soared to 50°C, there were blinding sandstorms, water was scarce and their diet consisted of rice and millet. For Kate this has been her toughest and most satisfying journey to date. She hopes to return to Mali and find her ‘desert family’ again.
1999
Animal Park
Back in the UK, Kate decided to become a TV presenter full-time, presenting the first series of Animal Park from Longleat House in Wiltshire. A year later, Kate was joined at Longleat by Ben Fogle, fresh from his Castaway island in Scotland.
1997
Joined the BBC
Kate joined the BBC as a senior researcher on Animal Hospital, presented by Rolf Harris. Her travel and writing experience saw her move to the Holiday programme, where, on her second day in the office, she was asked to do a screen test. Within 2 weeks Kate was presenting her first Holiday report, from a barge holiday on a French canal in driving rain and thick fog!
Kate was a hit and the producers decided to give her a slot within the main Holiday programme – Humble Holidays featured holidays under £300, and was made on a shoestring budget. It was while filming one of the Humble Holiday slots (with producer Kate Beetham) that Kate tried her hand at something which has become a hugely important part of both her working and private life – at Porthkerris Divers in Cornwall she learned to SCUBA dive.
1994
Back to Africa
After the 1994 elections in South Africa Nelson Mandela came to power and Kate and Ludo set off to explore the new South Africa and its neighbours, spending several months living out of the back of a beaten up old Ford Cortina bakkie. Their 30,000 kilometre journey took them from Cape Town through Namibia, Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Swaziland. Once back in South Africa they sold the bakkie to fund a long term dream of getting to the then little-visited island of Madagascar. They spent two months travelling around the southern half of the country on foot and by lorry, train and oxcart. The Madagascar journey became Kate’s first published article for the travel section of ‘The Telegraph’.
1992
Marriage
Kate married TV producer Ludo Graham
1989
First job in TV
In 1989, Kate got her first break in television – as a tea-maker and typist at a company that made corporate videos. Over the next few years she worked her way up to becoming a production assistant, then researcher, assistant producer and director.
1988
First trip to Africa
Kate left school with ‘A’ levels in English, History and Latin, and decided that travelling to Africa would be more beneficial than going to university. In 1988, aged 19 and with just £800 in her pocket, Kate set off for South Africa. Over the next year she worked as a (very bad) waitress, on a crocodile farm in Zambia, and as a truck driver for a safari company. By the summer of 1989, having crossed the entire African continent, she reached Cairo with £5 and no ticket home.
1968
Kate was born!
Kate Humble was born on 12th December 1968 in Wimbledon, south London. She and her younger brother, Charlie, grew up in Berkshire next door to a farm. She learned to ride at the age of 5 and spent most of her early years mucking out horses.
