foreword
,In November 2017 at the age of 41, just a few weeks before this interview, Asha was diagnosed with Asymptomatic Myeloma; an incurable form of bone cancer. In her interview, in addition to speaking about her many accomplishments, Asha speaks candidly about her diagnosis and what it means for her career and personal life. While the seriousness of this news cannot be minimalism, Asha has chosen to tackle it with the same ferocity in which she tackles everything. This diagnosis has not slowed Asha down. In deed, it has revved her up; a fact that is certainly made clear in this interview. There are so many words to describe Asha. Fierce is but one of them. You can follow Asha and her incredible adventures directly by visiting her blog, whogivesamonkeys.
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Name: Asha Tanna
Occupation: Journalist
Age at interview: 41
Nationality: British
Country of residence: Currently exploring the world's oceans one dive at a time
Languages spoken: English, German, French (conversational)
Contact: ashatanna@hotmail.co.uk
Showreel 2017: https://vimeo.com/238313406
Website: www.whogivesamonkeys.com
Advice to other women: "I think in a utopian world, it would be brilliant if everybody could follow exactly what they wanted to do, but if you've got a family and you've got kids and you've got bills that youwhogivesamonkeys.com/ have to pay, then you're tied into something that you can't just walk away from. You have to look at your choices very carefully. I would always say do what makes you happy. If you're unhappy, it's only going to make you more miserable as time goes on. If you can find a way to get rid of the misery and find happiness by doing what you love, then obviously go for it."
Today I'm joined by an amazingly accomplished woman by the name of Asha Tanna, who is joining me today actually only a few hours after hiking up a 4,000-meter volcano. I thought it was really important to mention that, because it gives you an idea of the kind of amazing, tenacious, and fierce person that Asha is. Now, Asha has had an extensive career in journalism. She's reported widely on many topics from entertainment to politics, news, and sport, to name but a few. But in addition to that, Asha has also had a long-held love of natural history, and despite being an accomplished journalist, Asha decided to go back to university, where she retrained to become a primatologist and now is also qualified in that field. In addition to all of this though, Asha also pursues diving in a variety of forms. It's my understanding that she's involved in free diving, but she's also about to begin the process of becoming a diving instructor. So as you can see, Asha is a very accomplished person. I won't go into any more detail myself. I'll let Asha take over, but firstly, thank you, Asha, for joining me today.
Thank you for having me, Victoria.
I thought we could start with your career in journalism, because obviously that was the starting point for you. So I was wondering what it was that captured your imagination?
I think from a very young age, I've always been genuinely interested in meeting people and hearing their stories, finding out who they are, what makes them tick, where they've been, where they're going, what's formed their decisions as to the people that they've turned into. Journalism, I suppose, was something that I naturally gravitated towards. Initially, it was print journalism, because I've always enjoyed writing. There's something quite romantic about having ink on your hands, and back in the day when I started, newsrooms were very different. It was a completely different environment to the ones that you find nowadays. So journalism for me was basically following my curious nature.
Occupation: Journalist
Age at interview: 41
Nationality: British
Country of residence: Currently exploring the world's oceans one dive at a time
Languages spoken: English, German, French (conversational)
Contact: ashatanna@hotmail.co.uk
Showreel 2017: https://vimeo.com/238313406
Website: www.whogivesamonkeys.com
Advice to other women: "I think in a utopian world, it would be brilliant if everybody could follow exactly what they wanted to do, but if you've got a family and you've got kids and you've got bills that youwhogivesamonkeys.com/ have to pay, then you're tied into something that you can't just walk away from. You have to look at your choices very carefully. I would always say do what makes you happy. If you're unhappy, it's only going to make you more miserable as time goes on. If you can find a way to get rid of the misery and find happiness by doing what you love, then obviously go for it."
Today I'm joined by an amazingly accomplished woman by the name of Asha Tanna, who is joining me today actually only a few hours after hiking up a 4,000-meter volcano. I thought it was really important to mention that, because it gives you an idea of the kind of amazing, tenacious, and fierce person that Asha is. Now, Asha has had an extensive career in journalism. She's reported widely on many topics from entertainment to politics, news, and sport, to name but a few. But in addition to that, Asha has also had a long-held love of natural history, and despite being an accomplished journalist, Asha decided to go back to university, where she retrained to become a primatologist and now is also qualified in that field. In addition to all of this though, Asha also pursues diving in a variety of forms. It's my understanding that she's involved in free diving, but she's also about to begin the process of becoming a diving instructor. So as you can see, Asha is a very accomplished person. I won't go into any more detail myself. I'll let Asha take over, but firstly, thank you, Asha, for joining me today.
Thank you for having me, Victoria.
I thought we could start with your career in journalism, because obviously that was the starting point for you. So I was wondering what it was that captured your imagination?
I think from a very young age, I've always been genuinely interested in meeting people and hearing their stories, finding out who they are, what makes them tick, where they've been, where they're going, what's formed their decisions as to the people that they've turned into. Journalism, I suppose, was something that I naturally gravitated towards. Initially, it was print journalism, because I've always enjoyed writing. There's something quite romantic about having ink on your hands, and back in the day when I started, newsrooms were very different. It was a completely different environment to the ones that you find nowadays. So journalism for me was basically following my curious nature.
Rome, Vatican City, April 2014 reporting for Arise News on the double canonization.
The current Pope in the background in his Pope Mobile.
What path did you actually take to become a journalist? I ask this question because obviously, particularly nowadays, you can follow various paths to get where you want to be, but I imagine in journalism, it can be quite difficult to get your first break. Was there a particular path that you followed in order to get your foot in the door, so to speak?
I think you could interview so many different journalists across the world, and no one will have the same story as to how they got their lucky break, as you like to call it, or how they found their way in this industry. I started quite a traditional route. I started as a local newspaper reporter. Prior to becoming one of those, I was doing work experience with some of the local papers from the age of 15. When I joined my first paper, which was The Watford Observer, in 1998, I had no idea the amount of work that would be involved. Nobody actually tells you the other side of journalism, which is there are no such things as a day off. The story gets put to bed when the story is finished. You continue to work until that's done.
So I started in print, and then after about a few years, I got into broadcasting by applying to the BBC and working in radio, first of all. Then from there, I jumped into television and continued within broadcast media but mainly on screen. With many journalists, I think, even though our stories may be different as to how we got where we are today, I think there is an element of luck and timing. For me, my lucky break came as a local reporter, when the biggest bank robbery in British history fell into my lap. I was at work, and I hadn't been assigned a story for the day. The news editor handed me a press release that had come through overnight about a suspected robbery in Kent at a local depot. I rang up the police officer to speak to them as to what was going on, and it transpired that actually it was an armed robbery at a central holding station for where all the businesses in Kent put their money.
It was an organised job, which ended up seeing ... It was more than 56 million pounds stolen overnight in an incredible heist. Yeah, at the time, we had no idea how big the story was. By 5:00 that afternoon, it just mushroomed. By the end of the day, there were news channels from all over the world squeezed next to other in this tiny little industrial carpark trying to do lives. My lucky break came doing lives for national news. I was a BBC local reporter, and the network asked me to report for them through the night. About a week later, I got a call asking whether I'd like to come and join the grown ups, as it were.
I think you could interview so many different journalists across the world, and no one will have the same story as to how they got their lucky break, as you like to call it, or how they found their way in this industry. I started quite a traditional route. I started as a local newspaper reporter. Prior to becoming one of those, I was doing work experience with some of the local papers from the age of 15. When I joined my first paper, which was The Watford Observer, in 1998, I had no idea the amount of work that would be involved. Nobody actually tells you the other side of journalism, which is there are no such things as a day off. The story gets put to bed when the story is finished. You continue to work until that's done.
So I started in print, and then after about a few years, I got into broadcasting by applying to the BBC and working in radio, first of all. Then from there, I jumped into television and continued within broadcast media but mainly on screen. With many journalists, I think, even though our stories may be different as to how we got where we are today, I think there is an element of luck and timing. For me, my lucky break came as a local reporter, when the biggest bank robbery in British history fell into my lap. I was at work, and I hadn't been assigned a story for the day. The news editor handed me a press release that had come through overnight about a suspected robbery in Kent at a local depot. I rang up the police officer to speak to them as to what was going on, and it transpired that actually it was an armed robbery at a central holding station for where all the businesses in Kent put their money.
It was an organised job, which ended up seeing ... It was more than 56 million pounds stolen overnight in an incredible heist. Yeah, at the time, we had no idea how big the story was. By 5:00 that afternoon, it just mushroomed. By the end of the day, there were news channels from all over the world squeezed next to other in this tiny little industrial carpark trying to do lives. My lucky break came doing lives for national news. I was a BBC local reporter, and the network asked me to report for them through the night. About a week later, I got a call asking whether I'd like to come and join the grown ups, as it were.
Reporting on the Syrian Opposition talks for a cessation of hostilities in Syria, for TRT World in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, November 2015.
That's an amazing story. I love that there is a story that you can pinpoint where that opened the door for you. Was it difficult for you to transition to TV? This is a completely ignorant question, not being a journalist myself. Is there a difference for you being a reporter on radio as opposed to on television?
It's very different from print to radio and television. Print journalists I have so much respect for, because they write so well. Grammatically everything is correct, and I think it's much harder, actually, as a print journalist to hook the audience in. Radio has its own special way of reaching different audiences with sound in a way that you wouldn't necessarily think about, particularly if you're doing a feature piece. You think in sound so much, and not just sound effects, but also how powerful silence is within reports. That can really, really make an impact sometimes.
With television, you actually use less words, because you're supposed to script to picture. If you're doing a report, the less you say, the better, because the picture should be telling the story, unless you're doing live reporting, in which case, you need to be able to give factually accurate information very concisely within a set time, whether it's for television or whether it's for rolling news. It's a bit like patting your head and rubbing your stomach, because if you're wearing an earpiece, you've got several people yelling in your ear if you're going over, or telling you to wrap because the next item is coming up, or they've lost time. or they need you just to be quiet because something else is coming up.
You need to be able to say what you need to say, not look distracted, and deliver well. But it does take practise. It doesn't happen overnight, and anyone who thinks they ... If you're watching somebody and you think they're a born natural, no. I think there's probably ... You can probably count on one hand people who can actually do that the first time. Everybody who started looks like a rabbit caught in the headlights to begin with.
It's very different from print to radio and television. Print journalists I have so much respect for, because they write so well. Grammatically everything is correct, and I think it's much harder, actually, as a print journalist to hook the audience in. Radio has its own special way of reaching different audiences with sound in a way that you wouldn't necessarily think about, particularly if you're doing a feature piece. You think in sound so much, and not just sound effects, but also how powerful silence is within reports. That can really, really make an impact sometimes.
With television, you actually use less words, because you're supposed to script to picture. If you're doing a report, the less you say, the better, because the picture should be telling the story, unless you're doing live reporting, in which case, you need to be able to give factually accurate information very concisely within a set time, whether it's for television or whether it's for rolling news. It's a bit like patting your head and rubbing your stomach, because if you're wearing an earpiece, you've got several people yelling in your ear if you're going over, or telling you to wrap because the next item is coming up, or they've lost time. or they need you just to be quiet because something else is coming up.
You need to be able to say what you need to say, not look distracted, and deliver well. But it does take practise. It doesn't happen overnight, and anyone who thinks they ... If you're watching somebody and you think they're a born natural, no. I think there's probably ... You can probably count on one hand people who can actually do that the first time. Everybody who started looks like a rabbit caught in the headlights to begin with.
Behind the scenes. Brexit coverage June 2016, London. Reporting for TRT World.
You've given people out there who perhaps want to pursue journalism as a career some hope that not everyone just comes out of the gate running.
No, no. Not at all. It's definitely… luck does play a part in shaping your career. Unfortunately, I think more so now than ever. There is a large part of my industry that's very nepotistic. You can be a brilliant journalist ... I'm not talking about myself, by the way. You can be a brilliant journalist, and I have seen many colleagues who should have been rewarded for better positions and have been overlooked purely because it's not what they know, it's who they know. That's not just within my industry. That's the world over. You've got to have thick skin in this industry. If it's what you really love doing and want to do, then you've just got to keep ploughing ahead, and hopefully, you might get a lucky break, hopefully.
As a young woman in particular, what has been the most difficult aspect of being a journalist for you? Do you think your gender has impacted you in any way?
I think gender equality or rather inequality is something that isn't talked enough about, whether it be within journalism or any other field. Within my profession, in television in particular, it is a shallow industry. You are given a role because of the way you look and sound, not just because of the way you think and act, they are not viewed in the same way, unfortunately. It's not just from the managers in our industry. It's also from the general public. Women will often be criticised for the way they're dressed or the way their hair is, and their colleague sat next to them will not have the same number of emails that come in on that same bulletin.
I think as a woman, it can work to your advantage in some situations where you're going in to do an interview, and you can disarm somebody who doesn't necessarily believe that you're capable of handling a tough interview. That can work in your favour, but I think as a whole, women need to be celebrated more and given better opportunities, because I think still, in 2017 going into 2018, there is this huge gap between men and women in the workplace.
No, no. Not at all. It's definitely… luck does play a part in shaping your career. Unfortunately, I think more so now than ever. There is a large part of my industry that's very nepotistic. You can be a brilliant journalist ... I'm not talking about myself, by the way. You can be a brilliant journalist, and I have seen many colleagues who should have been rewarded for better positions and have been overlooked purely because it's not what they know, it's who they know. That's not just within my industry. That's the world over. You've got to have thick skin in this industry. If it's what you really love doing and want to do, then you've just got to keep ploughing ahead, and hopefully, you might get a lucky break, hopefully.
As a young woman in particular, what has been the most difficult aspect of being a journalist for you? Do you think your gender has impacted you in any way?
I think gender equality or rather inequality is something that isn't talked enough about, whether it be within journalism or any other field. Within my profession, in television in particular, it is a shallow industry. You are given a role because of the way you look and sound, not just because of the way you think and act, they are not viewed in the same way, unfortunately. It's not just from the managers in our industry. It's also from the general public. Women will often be criticised for the way they're dressed or the way their hair is, and their colleague sat next to them will not have the same number of emails that come in on that same bulletin.
I think as a woman, it can work to your advantage in some situations where you're going in to do an interview, and you can disarm somebody who doesn't necessarily believe that you're capable of handling a tough interview. That can work in your favour, but I think as a whole, women need to be celebrated more and given better opportunities, because I think still, in 2017 going into 2018, there is this huge gap between men and women in the workplace.
The viewers perspective. Brexit coverage June 2016, London. Reporting for TRT World.
Rome April 2014 reporting from St Peter's Square, The Vatican for Arise News on the double canonization.
Yes. There most certainly is, and I think part of addressing that gap is to be open about it. Sweeping it to the side and not acknowledging it certainly isn't doing anyone any favours. I think sharing experiences, individual experiences, can help. I think even just knowing that you're not alone and there are other people out there who've gone through the same thing is a good starting point.
Yes. I think it would be nice to see more women in higher ranking positions. They won't necessarily be more sympathetic towards female colleagues, but I think they will be quicker in recognising somebody who has potential and would hopefully reward them in a way that will be equal to their ability, not just because they're a woman.
Exactly. As a journalist, you must experience a lot of pressure in some interview situations, which is something that as a person who engages with media and watches journalists, it's something that I admire. I was wondering if you could provide a perspective on that, on how you cope with intense interview situations. Do you have a strategy for that?
I say the whole job is intense, not just the interviewing. It's the preparation for the interviewing and making sure you get ... Not necessarily get the interview right, because there's no such thing as a right interview, but do as best you can in the interview. I think we work to extraordinary deadlines in a way that a lot of other professions don't. That gives a lot of stress to the job. Not necessarily those deadlines, but other people then putting pressure on you to make those deadlines or when they change things last minute.
It's an industry that you have to enjoy thriving on adrenaline, because the adrenaline will kick in from the moment you wake up. I don't think you can ever mitigate against stress. You can only try and be as best prepared as you can. Knowing your subject, reading as much as possible about your subject, whether that's a person or a topic, and not going in blind into an interview. There's nothing worse than interviewing somebody when you clearly have no clue about the book that they've written or the film that they've just released or the latest line of ... I don't know ... potentially damaging allegations that have hit the papers that morning. You really do have to be on top of everything, because that will change the way your interviewing happens on the day.
Yes. I think it would be nice to see more women in higher ranking positions. They won't necessarily be more sympathetic towards female colleagues, but I think they will be quicker in recognising somebody who has potential and would hopefully reward them in a way that will be equal to their ability, not just because they're a woman.
Exactly. As a journalist, you must experience a lot of pressure in some interview situations, which is something that as a person who engages with media and watches journalists, it's something that I admire. I was wondering if you could provide a perspective on that, on how you cope with intense interview situations. Do you have a strategy for that?
I say the whole job is intense, not just the interviewing. It's the preparation for the interviewing and making sure you get ... Not necessarily get the interview right, because there's no such thing as a right interview, but do as best you can in the interview. I think we work to extraordinary deadlines in a way that a lot of other professions don't. That gives a lot of stress to the job. Not necessarily those deadlines, but other people then putting pressure on you to make those deadlines or when they change things last minute.
It's an industry that you have to enjoy thriving on adrenaline, because the adrenaline will kick in from the moment you wake up. I don't think you can ever mitigate against stress. You can only try and be as best prepared as you can. Knowing your subject, reading as much as possible about your subject, whether that's a person or a topic, and not going in blind into an interview. There's nothing worse than interviewing somebody when you clearly have no clue about the book that they've written or the film that they've just released or the latest line of ... I don't know ... potentially damaging allegations that have hit the papers that morning. You really do have to be on top of everything, because that will change the way your interviewing happens on the day.
Prior to speaking with you today, I myself went online and had a little bit of a look at the work that you've done. As I've already mentioned, you've obviously been involved with a diverse range of journalism. I watched a few of your interviews with celebrities and some of your news reports. Given that diversity, I was wondering if you had a particular interest that you prefer to report on or be involved with?
I think that as I got older, I've become definitely more aware of the situation, the health of our planet, should I say, and the way our population is growing at a phenomenal rate and the demands that we as humans are putting on our planet and the impact that's having. That's of interest to me, definitely. In terms of interviews that have interested me, it doesn't necessarily have to be a high profile person. The interviews that I've enjoyed doing the most or carrying out are the ones where people have shared information that has been genuine and true and has touched me in a way that I have not been able to stop thinking about that particular person or their story post-interview
I think that as I got older, I've become definitely more aware of the situation, the health of our planet, should I say, and the way our population is growing at a phenomenal rate and the demands that we as humans are putting on our planet and the impact that's having. That's of interest to me, definitely. In terms of interviews that have interested me, it doesn't necessarily have to be a high profile person. The interviews that I've enjoyed doing the most or carrying out are the ones where people have shared information that has been genuine and true and has touched me in a way that I have not been able to stop thinking about that particular person or their story post-interview
Asleep after 14 hours of non stop live coverage from London on the EU Referendum, July 2016. Asha catching 40 winks before she filed through the evening for the live bulletins in Istanbul.
That sounds amazing to me. I think that it's the stories that would likely stick with me as well in that kind of situation. I know just from speaking to the women that I've been speaking with, it's the story behind the person that stays with you. It's wonderful to hear that you come away from that as well feeling those things.
I have another question for you, which is coming from an angle, I guess, for people who may want to pursue journalism as a career. Currently you're a freelance journalist, and I was wondering if you saw any benefits to being a journalist in that capacity?
Freelancing is a brilliant way to live as a journalist if you can get the balance right. At one point, I was reporting as a correspondent for the BBC and presenting as a Sky News anchor simultaneously, sometimes even on the same day doing a double shift. So I'd start the morning at Sky, do a 12-hour shift, drive to BBC, sleep in the carpark, and then do a 10-hour shift as a correspondent on the same day. I don't know actually how I managed to do that without anybody batting an eyelid, because they're competitive stations. But it seemed to work for about nine months, which was brilliant. Yeah. It was a fantastic position to be in.
With freelance, it's feast or famine, and any freelancer will tell you that. You take the work because you don't know when it's going to dry up, and then you burn yourself out. You need to be able to be bold enough to say, "Right. I'm only going to do this amount of shifts, because I need to have a life and I need to sleep." It takes a lot of strength to step back and not to be pressured into taking more shifts than you can handle, because you simply cannot do more than 30 shifts in a month. It's just impossible. If it's just you, you could probably do it for one month, and then need two months off, I would imagine.
Freelancing is great, because if you are ... I think as you get older, you probably become less worried about what people think so much. When you're young, you're crazily trying to climb that ladder. You've got these big ambitions and dreams, and anyone who says they don't in my industry is lying, because we all have it when we start. Then I think as you get older, I wouldn't say it gets ground out of you, but it gets to the point where you realise that there is more to life than just work. That's when you're able to step back from saying, "Right. I'm not going to be doing ridiculous shifts for the next four months." I think when you're young, you think you've got endless energy, so you do it.
I have another question for you, which is coming from an angle, I guess, for people who may want to pursue journalism as a career. Currently you're a freelance journalist, and I was wondering if you saw any benefits to being a journalist in that capacity?
Freelancing is a brilliant way to live as a journalist if you can get the balance right. At one point, I was reporting as a correspondent for the BBC and presenting as a Sky News anchor simultaneously, sometimes even on the same day doing a double shift. So I'd start the morning at Sky, do a 12-hour shift, drive to BBC, sleep in the carpark, and then do a 10-hour shift as a correspondent on the same day. I don't know actually how I managed to do that without anybody batting an eyelid, because they're competitive stations. But it seemed to work for about nine months, which was brilliant. Yeah. It was a fantastic position to be in.
With freelance, it's feast or famine, and any freelancer will tell you that. You take the work because you don't know when it's going to dry up, and then you burn yourself out. You need to be able to be bold enough to say, "Right. I'm only going to do this amount of shifts, because I need to have a life and I need to sleep." It takes a lot of strength to step back and not to be pressured into taking more shifts than you can handle, because you simply cannot do more than 30 shifts in a month. It's just impossible. If it's just you, you could probably do it for one month, and then need two months off, I would imagine.
Freelancing is great, because if you are ... I think as you get older, you probably become less worried about what people think so much. When you're young, you're crazily trying to climb that ladder. You've got these big ambitions and dreams, and anyone who says they don't in my industry is lying, because we all have it when we start. Then I think as you get older, I wouldn't say it gets ground out of you, but it gets to the point where you realise that there is more to life than just work. That's when you're able to step back from saying, "Right. I'm not going to be doing ridiculous shifts for the next four months." I think when you're young, you think you've got endless energy, so you do it.
Rwanda, The Virungas Mountain Range home to the Mountain Gorillas.
Reporting on eco-tourism for Arise News June/July 2014.
You're a very accomplished person. Part of your story is that in 2010, while you were a journalist, you decided to go back and study primatology, which is the study of monkeys and apes. Obviously, this has been an underlying passion for you, but to take a passion and then take that leap into pursuing it, I guess, in a career capacity is something that a lot of people don't necessarily take that step to do, particularly when they're already, successful in another career path. What was it that motivated you to take that leap?
It wasn't even so much motivation, Victoria. I was actually forced to re-examine my life. When the financial crash happened in 2008, it took a while for it to impact the television world. I saw my income dry up from being able to do double shifts as I just described to suddenly not even being able to get one shift a month. I had no idea how I was going to pay my bills, and I looked to everything, from print, radio, television, and it was almost like being handed a poison chalice working in front of the camera, because nobody would take me for any jobs that weren't extremely high profile, because they said to me, "You'll jump ship when a better job comes."
At that point, I hadn't worked properly for about a full year, and I just needed money to pay my mortgage, my bills, buy food. I thought, "I can't sustain living like this." So my best friend actually said to me, "Why don't you go back to study and use your brain," because I was going absolutely mad not being able to work. I'm not an idle person. I don't enjoy sitting still.
I had no aspirations to study monkeys and apes. I've always been curious about the natural world, and I thought if I had to start over again, what would I like to work in? I thought about working within conservation or something to do with natural history, but I didn't actually have a clue what I wanted to do. I was just playing around on the internet and punching words into Google, and something came up about monkeys and apes. I thought, "Oh, I don't actually know the difference." That, then, peaked my curiosity about the subject. I decided that I would like to try and do a masters in it. Of course, doing a masters, a scientific masters, in a subject when you don't have A level science is aiming a little bit high, shall we say.
It wasn't even so much motivation, Victoria. I was actually forced to re-examine my life. When the financial crash happened in 2008, it took a while for it to impact the television world. I saw my income dry up from being able to do double shifts as I just described to suddenly not even being able to get one shift a month. I had no idea how I was going to pay my bills, and I looked to everything, from print, radio, television, and it was almost like being handed a poison chalice working in front of the camera, because nobody would take me for any jobs that weren't extremely high profile, because they said to me, "You'll jump ship when a better job comes."
At that point, I hadn't worked properly for about a full year, and I just needed money to pay my mortgage, my bills, buy food. I thought, "I can't sustain living like this." So my best friend actually said to me, "Why don't you go back to study and use your brain," because I was going absolutely mad not being able to work. I'm not an idle person. I don't enjoy sitting still.
I had no aspirations to study monkeys and apes. I've always been curious about the natural world, and I thought if I had to start over again, what would I like to work in? I thought about working within conservation or something to do with natural history, but I didn't actually have a clue what I wanted to do. I was just playing around on the internet and punching words into Google, and something came up about monkeys and apes. I thought, "Oh, I don't actually know the difference." That, then, peaked my curiosity about the subject. I decided that I would like to try and do a masters in it. Of course, doing a masters, a scientific masters, in a subject when you don't have A level science is aiming a little bit high, shall we say.
Rwanda The Virungas Mountain Range home to the Mountain Gorillas.
Reporting on eco-tourism for Arise News June/July 2014.
When I was ringing around the universities, it wasn't of any surprise that people told me that I was mad and to go away and to either get an A level in science first or to do an undergraduate degree. At the time, I think I was about 37 or 38, and I thought, "I can't do that. I can't get an undergraduate degree part-time. I'll be over 40. Time is ticking." I found a brilliant university, Roehampton, and they said to me, "We will take into consideration your age, your life experience, the job that you've done, your first degree, and its qualification." I had a 2:1 in English. They said to me, "We can't take you on a masters subject, because you don't have science, A level, but what we can do is offer you a conditional place on the undergraduate biological sciences degree of the final year. If you can prove to us you can write academically, you can pass all the exams that are set in the specific modules that we give you, then you'll get a conditional offer onto the masters."
I had a year to do that, so that's what I did. It was an extremely steep learning curve, and I had very little money, but the bit of money I had ... I think I had about 800 quid ... I bought a plane ticket to Uganda, because I thought, "If I'm going to do a masters and I need to study these animals, I need to enjoy the environment that they live in, so I better get to Africa and have a look at the old world, monkeys and apes, and see whether I'm cut out for this." I'd never even been camping before, let alone gone off to the rainforest in Uganda.
It was a matter of trying to use my influence as a journalist as a bargaining tool. I couldn't pay to work as a volunteer. I didn't have two grand to spare. I could just about afford an air flight. So I managed to coerce a volunteer sanctuary into letting me stay so that I could video what they do every day and make a broadcast quality video for them, and in the meantime, get experience. I met a very charming emeritus professor from Oxford, Professor Vernon Reynolds. I drove down to Sussex to see him, and he had founded a conservation field station in Uganda. I went to visit him to talk about Uganda, and we talked about Africa and politics. He told me about the director who was running the project and said he would put me in touch.
Long story short, when I got to Uganda, I had a place, both on Ngamba Island, this was the conservation sanctuary, and a place at Budongo to go and visit, just in the space of a week, I think I had. I had no idea how I was going to get from one bit of Uganda to the next, from Entebbe to Kampala, then from Kampala up to Budongo, which is a long, long car journey or bus ride. But it worked. There were many people who helped me along the way and gave me a free ride in their car, and it was a fantastic experience. I thought, "I'm either going to love it or I'll hate it." Sleeping and living in the rain forest, just for two nights, was enough to tell me that I wanted to do this full-time for my masters.
I came back, did the final year of the biological sciences degree, got onto the masters programme, and I actually did my research back in Budongo looking at human/wildlife conflict. It was probably one of the best, best months of my life. It was just phenomenal.
I had a year to do that, so that's what I did. It was an extremely steep learning curve, and I had very little money, but the bit of money I had ... I think I had about 800 quid ... I bought a plane ticket to Uganda, because I thought, "If I'm going to do a masters and I need to study these animals, I need to enjoy the environment that they live in, so I better get to Africa and have a look at the old world, monkeys and apes, and see whether I'm cut out for this." I'd never even been camping before, let alone gone off to the rainforest in Uganda.
It was a matter of trying to use my influence as a journalist as a bargaining tool. I couldn't pay to work as a volunteer. I didn't have two grand to spare. I could just about afford an air flight. So I managed to coerce a volunteer sanctuary into letting me stay so that I could video what they do every day and make a broadcast quality video for them, and in the meantime, get experience. I met a very charming emeritus professor from Oxford, Professor Vernon Reynolds. I drove down to Sussex to see him, and he had founded a conservation field station in Uganda. I went to visit him to talk about Uganda, and we talked about Africa and politics. He told me about the director who was running the project and said he would put me in touch.
Long story short, when I got to Uganda, I had a place, both on Ngamba Island, this was the conservation sanctuary, and a place at Budongo to go and visit, just in the space of a week, I think I had. I had no idea how I was going to get from one bit of Uganda to the next, from Entebbe to Kampala, then from Kampala up to Budongo, which is a long, long car journey or bus ride. But it worked. There were many people who helped me along the way and gave me a free ride in their car, and it was a fantastic experience. I thought, "I'm either going to love it or I'll hate it." Sleeping and living in the rain forest, just for two nights, was enough to tell me that I wanted to do this full-time for my masters.
I came back, did the final year of the biological sciences degree, got onto the masters programme, and I actually did my research back in Budongo looking at human/wildlife conflict. It was probably one of the best, best months of my life. It was just phenomenal.
Rwanda, The Virungas Mountain Range home to the Mountain Gorillas.
Reporting on eco-tourism for Arise News June/July 2014.
That is a truly incredible story. I love how everything just fell into place, even though you didn't have a direct plan, which is just wonderful. It also stood out to me ... I guess I had in my mind that you were a journalist and then you decided to be a primatologist, but your journalism was still there. The fact that you were able to utilise your skill to be able to help someone but also gain some benefit from that was a really clever idea.
Yes. Well, when you don't have cash, you have to be able to sell something.
That's it. You've got to be resourceful.
It was the only way I could do it.
Bearing that in mind, obviously you never completely stepped away from journalism, but did you encounter any opinions from people about your decision to go back and chase this different path? Were people generally supportive of this for you?
Yes. Well, when you don't have cash, you have to be able to sell something.
That's it. You've got to be resourceful.
It was the only way I could do it.
Bearing that in mind, obviously you never completely stepped away from journalism, but did you encounter any opinions from people about your decision to go back and chase this different path? Were people generally supportive of this for you?
Rwanda, The Virungas Mountain Range home to the Mountain Gorillas.
Reporting on eco-tourism for Arise News June/July 2014.
Yeah. Actually, everybody who worked in my industry thought it was remarkable, because that time of the financial crash, there were a lot of casualties. I saw extremely great colleagues lose their jobs and just never get back up on their feet again. They left the industry completely.
The route I was following was with a view, if it was at all possible, to use the specialism to come back into journalism. But again, I had no idea whether that would actually work, and if it didn't, then my plan B was to try and work in conservation full-time. Thankfully, for me, it did come back full circle, and I worked for Channel 4 News as a science correspondent for a full year with them using my science. But more importantly, having the opportunity to study science for that brief time, it was like for two years, I am by no means an expert. I've got huge gaps in my knowledge still to this day, but it has given me a better understanding of how academics work. I don't feel scared when I pick up a peer review paper to look at.
The view to doing that was to be the bridge between the journalistic world and the academic world, because both industries don't really understand each other, and they have to work together sometimes. Each one accuses the other of doing something wrong. Like journalists, we say the academics never talk in plain English. The academics always accuse the journalists of misquoting them. So it was trying to be the bridge between the two, and I'm still very interested in doing that, whether it be in primatology or within marine biology and climate change and conservation to do with the ocean, because that's something I've become extremely passionate about following my diving.
What has been your experience with the communication in the academic world and in journalism? I saw a couple of correspondence where you were doing acting as a scientific reporter. Do you think that it is easy or there is a way to bridge that gap? To be honest, I feel it's still quite apparent that there is a gap between those two forms of communication.
Yeah, there's a massive gap, and that's mainly because unless you have a journalist that has a science background, that's always going to be difficult if you've got a general reporter put on a science story. If academics aren't able to speak in layman's terms, which often they don't, people get misinterpreted, whether that be for television or whether that be for print. I think both of the industries need to work harder at communication. There is no perfect solution for it.
With editorial, you don't get to verify your copy before we go to press. Sometimes there's no time. With broadcast, there's definitely no time. You're often cutting a story on the day. You've only just been assigned the story at 9:00 a.m., and you've got to get all your interviews done. You've got to get all the filming done. You've got to get all that material back into the building, ingest it in real time, then get in an edit suite, write your script, pick the pictures, pick the quotes, and stick it all together to make it on air. It's a heart attack from start to finish every day you do daily news. So when a scientist says, "We need to check which quote you're using," it's not ever going to happen.
The route I was following was with a view, if it was at all possible, to use the specialism to come back into journalism. But again, I had no idea whether that would actually work, and if it didn't, then my plan B was to try and work in conservation full-time. Thankfully, for me, it did come back full circle, and I worked for Channel 4 News as a science correspondent for a full year with them using my science. But more importantly, having the opportunity to study science for that brief time, it was like for two years, I am by no means an expert. I've got huge gaps in my knowledge still to this day, but it has given me a better understanding of how academics work. I don't feel scared when I pick up a peer review paper to look at.
The view to doing that was to be the bridge between the journalistic world and the academic world, because both industries don't really understand each other, and they have to work together sometimes. Each one accuses the other of doing something wrong. Like journalists, we say the academics never talk in plain English. The academics always accuse the journalists of misquoting them. So it was trying to be the bridge between the two, and I'm still very interested in doing that, whether it be in primatology or within marine biology and climate change and conservation to do with the ocean, because that's something I've become extremely passionate about following my diving.
What has been your experience with the communication in the academic world and in journalism? I saw a couple of correspondence where you were doing acting as a scientific reporter. Do you think that it is easy or there is a way to bridge that gap? To be honest, I feel it's still quite apparent that there is a gap between those two forms of communication.
Yeah, there's a massive gap, and that's mainly because unless you have a journalist that has a science background, that's always going to be difficult if you've got a general reporter put on a science story. If academics aren't able to speak in layman's terms, which often they don't, people get misinterpreted, whether that be for television or whether that be for print. I think both of the industries need to work harder at communication. There is no perfect solution for it.
With editorial, you don't get to verify your copy before we go to press. Sometimes there's no time. With broadcast, there's definitely no time. You're often cutting a story on the day. You've only just been assigned the story at 9:00 a.m., and you've got to get all your interviews done. You've got to get all the filming done. You've got to get all that material back into the building, ingest it in real time, then get in an edit suite, write your script, pick the pictures, pick the quotes, and stick it all together to make it on air. It's a heart attack from start to finish every day you do daily news. So when a scientist says, "We need to check which quote you're using," it's not ever going to happen.
Asha diving off the coast of Chile with sea lions, January 2016.
Yeah. That's exactly right. I think once you have it broken down for you like that, you realise what is exactly involved, there needs to be a bit of realism there about the standards of just physically being able to check everything.
I wanted to move round a little bit to an important topic that has come up for you. Recently, you received some very hard news that you decided to go public with. That is that you have recently been diagnosed with cancer, which obviously, for anybody is going to be a big shock, but as a young, active, seemingly healthy woman, it must have just been a huge blow for you. I was wondering if you were able to tell us a little bit about your diagnosis and your journey with that so far?
Yeah. I was living and working in Istanbul for the last year and a half. I decided to quit my job after the stress, the pressure, became too much. It was a very volatile 18 months. I'd done a lot of on-the-scene reporting after suicide bombs. I was sent on a really difficult deployment to the border, where I came back with post-traumatic stress. And then the military coup for me was the final straw. So I quit my job, and I thought, "Right. What am I going to do next?"
I remember sitting in my flat in Istanbul thinking, "Why am I so stressed out, and why am I unhappy?" The one thing that kept coming up over and over again was my time in Uganda when I was doing my research, how happy I was. I wanted to get back to doing something similar. I've been a scuba diver for 20 years now, and I've never considered doing it professionally. I've done the different levels, the open water diver, then advanced, then rescue diver. I thought, "Why don't I look at becoming a dive master?" It was quite random. It was something quite similar, was looking, plugging words into Google about marine biology and diving and whether there was anything possible that I could join.
I got onto an internship programme where I would move to Fiji, which I ended up doing. So from Istanbul to Fiji. You couldn't really get much further away from Turkey. It was 180 degrees, quite literally. The programme was to study fish that were being protected in certain areas of the islands of Fiji and look at marine protected areas and the attitudes towards fishing. Then the other half of the programme was to train as a dive master. I completed that. I didn't actually stay with the course I joined. It didn't work out as I'd hoped, but I did complete my dive master elsewhere at the Jean-Michel Cousteau Diving School in Savusavu, which were brilliant. I had a phenomenal instructor, two instructors there, and the local team were brilliant. I miss those guys so much. We speak quite a lot on WhatsApp.
I stayed in Fiji for five months, and then I decided to travel. The plan was initially to try and get work as a dive master while travelling, but what nobody tells you is that it's very difficult to become a dive master and get paid as an expat, because normally those roles are always given, no matter where you are, in which country, to local people, because inevitably they have been diving those waters longer than you've been breathing air in their country. They're obviously going to get those jobs.
In the end, I just treated it as a year off, a sabbatical. My diagnosis came out of the blue in September. I'd just landed in the Philippines, and it was basically a screw up from the doctors my end. Before I went away to join up on the dive course, I had to have a routine check up, and my doctor at the time said, "You should take your bloods. May as well. You're over 40 now." So they did, but what they didn't do was to follow up the results with me. It was just purely by accident that a clinician pulled up my records nine months later and saw abnormalities in my blood records and emailed me saying I needed to get to hospital ASAP for further tests.
I wanted to move round a little bit to an important topic that has come up for you. Recently, you received some very hard news that you decided to go public with. That is that you have recently been diagnosed with cancer, which obviously, for anybody is going to be a big shock, but as a young, active, seemingly healthy woman, it must have just been a huge blow for you. I was wondering if you were able to tell us a little bit about your diagnosis and your journey with that so far?
Yeah. I was living and working in Istanbul for the last year and a half. I decided to quit my job after the stress, the pressure, became too much. It was a very volatile 18 months. I'd done a lot of on-the-scene reporting after suicide bombs. I was sent on a really difficult deployment to the border, where I came back with post-traumatic stress. And then the military coup for me was the final straw. So I quit my job, and I thought, "Right. What am I going to do next?"
I remember sitting in my flat in Istanbul thinking, "Why am I so stressed out, and why am I unhappy?" The one thing that kept coming up over and over again was my time in Uganda when I was doing my research, how happy I was. I wanted to get back to doing something similar. I've been a scuba diver for 20 years now, and I've never considered doing it professionally. I've done the different levels, the open water diver, then advanced, then rescue diver. I thought, "Why don't I look at becoming a dive master?" It was quite random. It was something quite similar, was looking, plugging words into Google about marine biology and diving and whether there was anything possible that I could join.
I got onto an internship programme where I would move to Fiji, which I ended up doing. So from Istanbul to Fiji. You couldn't really get much further away from Turkey. It was 180 degrees, quite literally. The programme was to study fish that were being protected in certain areas of the islands of Fiji and look at marine protected areas and the attitudes towards fishing. Then the other half of the programme was to train as a dive master. I completed that. I didn't actually stay with the course I joined. It didn't work out as I'd hoped, but I did complete my dive master elsewhere at the Jean-Michel Cousteau Diving School in Savusavu, which were brilliant. I had a phenomenal instructor, two instructors there, and the local team were brilliant. I miss those guys so much. We speak quite a lot on WhatsApp.
I stayed in Fiji for five months, and then I decided to travel. The plan was initially to try and get work as a dive master while travelling, but what nobody tells you is that it's very difficult to become a dive master and get paid as an expat, because normally those roles are always given, no matter where you are, in which country, to local people, because inevitably they have been diving those waters longer than you've been breathing air in their country. They're obviously going to get those jobs.
In the end, I just treated it as a year off, a sabbatical. My diagnosis came out of the blue in September. I'd just landed in the Philippines, and it was basically a screw up from the doctors my end. Before I went away to join up on the dive course, I had to have a routine check up, and my doctor at the time said, "You should take your bloods. May as well. You're over 40 now." So they did, but what they didn't do was to follow up the results with me. It was just purely by accident that a clinician pulled up my records nine months later and saw abnormalities in my blood records and emailed me saying I needed to get to hospital ASAP for further tests.
Asha in a Bonsai nursery in Tokyo, Japan, August 2017.
When I was in the Philippines, I was only meant to stay a week, I ended up spending six weeks, and it was a surreal time flying in and out of Manila, having tests, and then using the waiting period to go off and explore these beautiful islands and dive with thresher sharks and hike 2,000-year-old rice terraces and go and practise my free diving, which is something I've only just taken up this year. So I did all these incredible things while waiting for the most horrific news, which unfortunately was realised. I was told I should have a bone marrow biopsy to confirm what sort of cancer it was. But I couldn't afford to pay for that privately, so I flew home in October, and I was diagnosed with Asymptomatic Myeloma, which is cancer of the bone marrow. That diagnosis came on November 15th.
My goodness. What a story there. I didn't actually realise that you found out almost through your diving. It was the diving that facilitated that blood test. But I was also horrified... I read your blog where you've posted about this, that that was able to be missed for nine months? I can't imagine all the emotions you've gone through, but did you feel any anger about that in particular?
I think initially, I was really angry, because that was their job for them to contact me. But in hindsight, Victoria, I think if I had been informed in January of this year, I never would have accomplished, seen, or done any of the things I have done this year, which has been amazing. I've been to more than 11 countries. I've hiked Mount Fuji. I've done an extreme baited, cageless shark dive with seven apex predators. I've gone to a bonsai tree school. I've seen Komodo dragons. I've had the most phenomenal year, where I've met really interesting people and experienced things. I've managed to tick off Japan, which had been on my list for a very, very long time. I've visited Whistler. The plan was actually to stay in Canada and learn snowboard, but obviously I had to come back for my diagnosis, so that didn't happen.
I managed to see friends in Southeast Asia I haven't seen in a few years, so that was really, really lovely. Yeah. Just being able to fall in love with the water in a way that I didn't actually think was possible. I've always enjoyed diving, but I've become somewhat obsessed with it now. This year alone, I've done more than 300 dives. I'm speaking to you from Guatemala at the moment. In February, I'll be taking my scuba instructor certification with the view to trying to work in the industry until I no longer physically can, because the cancer that I have is a debilitating one where it attacks the bones. Once that starts to happen, I won't be able to dive anymore.
When I was in the Philippines, I was only meant to stay a week, I ended up spending six weeks, and it was a surreal time flying in and out of Manila, having tests, and then using the waiting period to go off and explore these beautiful islands and dive with thresher sharks and hike 2,000-year-old rice terraces and go and practise my free diving, which is something I've only just taken up this year. So I did all these incredible things while waiting for the most horrific news, which unfortunately was realised. I was told I should have a bone marrow biopsy to confirm what sort of cancer it was. But I couldn't afford to pay for that privately, so I flew home in October, and I was diagnosed with Asymptomatic Myeloma, which is cancer of the bone marrow. That diagnosis came on November 15th.
My goodness. What a story there. I didn't actually realise that you found out almost through your diving. It was the diving that facilitated that blood test. But I was also horrified... I read your blog where you've posted about this, that that was able to be missed for nine months? I can't imagine all the emotions you've gone through, but did you feel any anger about that in particular?
I think initially, I was really angry, because that was their job for them to contact me. But in hindsight, Victoria, I think if I had been informed in January of this year, I never would have accomplished, seen, or done any of the things I have done this year, which has been amazing. I've been to more than 11 countries. I've hiked Mount Fuji. I've done an extreme baited, cageless shark dive with seven apex predators. I've gone to a bonsai tree school. I've seen Komodo dragons. I've had the most phenomenal year, where I've met really interesting people and experienced things. I've managed to tick off Japan, which had been on my list for a very, very long time. I've visited Whistler. The plan was actually to stay in Canada and learn snowboard, but obviously I had to come back for my diagnosis, so that didn't happen.
I managed to see friends in Southeast Asia I haven't seen in a few years, so that was really, really lovely. Yeah. Just being able to fall in love with the water in a way that I didn't actually think was possible. I've always enjoyed diving, but I've become somewhat obsessed with it now. This year alone, I've done more than 300 dives. I'm speaking to you from Guatemala at the moment. In February, I'll be taking my scuba instructor certification with the view to trying to work in the industry until I no longer physically can, because the cancer that I have is a debilitating one where it attacks the bones. Once that starts to happen, I won't be able to dive anymore.
Currently, you're asymptomatic. Is that correct? Obviously, you just came back from hiking a volcano! You must be feeling fairly well in yourself currently?
I do tend to put my body through a lot. I am very, very, very active and have a lot of energy, probably more than I should. Asymptomatic means that I have high levels of the cancer protein in my blood. I am noticing some signs. I have pain in my lumbar spine. I have aches in my joints, more so today because I've hiked a volcano. Dehydration. I'm starting to notice ever so slightly changes in the skin coloration on my body now. Yeah. I don't need to right now have chemotherapy, and I'm not on medication, because they will only start to give you chemo once the cancer starts to move.
When the cancer starts to move, the first thing it does is start attacking the bones. Once the bones start to deteriorate, your body overproduces calcium to compensate, and that leads to fatigue and dehydration, and then your kidneys try to flush out the excess calcium. Then you suffer renal failure. So that's the process of Myeloma. They reckon I've had it a couple of years, but because I have such an active, healthy lifestyle, I've been able to do what I've been doing without any problem. They say on average, somebody with Asymptomatic Myeloma will go on to develop Symptomatic Myeloma anything between one and five years. But every patient is different, so who knows.
I do tend to put my body through a lot. I am very, very, very active and have a lot of energy, probably more than I should. Asymptomatic means that I have high levels of the cancer protein in my blood. I am noticing some signs. I have pain in my lumbar spine. I have aches in my joints, more so today because I've hiked a volcano. Dehydration. I'm starting to notice ever so slightly changes in the skin coloration on my body now. Yeah. I don't need to right now have chemotherapy, and I'm not on medication, because they will only start to give you chemo once the cancer starts to move.
When the cancer starts to move, the first thing it does is start attacking the bones. Once the bones start to deteriorate, your body overproduces calcium to compensate, and that leads to fatigue and dehydration, and then your kidneys try to flush out the excess calcium. Then you suffer renal failure. So that's the process of Myeloma. They reckon I've had it a couple of years, but because I have such an active, healthy lifestyle, I've been able to do what I've been doing without any problem. They say on average, somebody with Asymptomatic Myeloma will go on to develop Symptomatic Myeloma anything between one and five years. But every patient is different, so who knows.
Mount Acatenango in Antigua, Guatemala. Summit just under 4000m, December 2017.
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Asha, mid hike up the epic Mount Acatenango, December 2017. This interview was given just a few hours after. No rest for the wicked!
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What about the process of it so far? What has been the hardest thing for you? Have you spoken to anyone else with a similar disease or have you been alone in this process?
Myeloma is a disease that actually affects men in their 70s from African Caribbean heritage. Now, my father is African, he's Tanzanian Indian. My mother is Caribbean. She's Trinidadian Indian, so I've got that bit right. But I'm not male and I'm not over 70, so I fall in the 4% of Myeloma patients that are female and under 45 years old. I haven't met any other myeloma patients in a similar position to me. I've read a lot of forum chat, and it's been really interesting and encouraging to read what other people have spoken about, but it's been for me, the hardest thing, I suppose, is having choices made for you when you have cancer. Knowing that, for example, my television career is probably unlikely to continue for much longer or may well have finished now, because once I start chemo, there is absolutely no way that that will ever allow me to be on screen again. That's not a massive problem. There are other forms of journalism I can pursue.
I think not knowing is also another frustrating thing, because with this type of cancer, it's a watch and wait. Because they won't give you medication until the cancer starts to move, I have to be monitored every quarter for bloods. Every quarter is how I'm living my life now, and I intend to try and have a goal to achieve every quarter, and that's as far as I can plan ahead. I can't plan for next year. I can only plan for April, and that's it.
Myeloma is a disease that actually affects men in their 70s from African Caribbean heritage. Now, my father is African, he's Tanzanian Indian. My mother is Caribbean. She's Trinidadian Indian, so I've got that bit right. But I'm not male and I'm not over 70, so I fall in the 4% of Myeloma patients that are female and under 45 years old. I haven't met any other myeloma patients in a similar position to me. I've read a lot of forum chat, and it's been really interesting and encouraging to read what other people have spoken about, but it's been for me, the hardest thing, I suppose, is having choices made for you when you have cancer. Knowing that, for example, my television career is probably unlikely to continue for much longer or may well have finished now, because once I start chemo, there is absolutely no way that that will ever allow me to be on screen again. That's not a massive problem. There are other forms of journalism I can pursue.
I think not knowing is also another frustrating thing, because with this type of cancer, it's a watch and wait. Because they won't give you medication until the cancer starts to move, I have to be monitored every quarter for bloods. Every quarter is how I'm living my life now, and I intend to try and have a goal to achieve every quarter, and that's as far as I can plan ahead. I can't plan for next year. I can only plan for April, and that's it.
On a liveaboard at sea in Komodo Indonesia, July 2017.
I really commend you on your decision to go public. With anything such as a diagnosis of cancer, it's an extremely personal thing. It certainly opened my eyes. I knew of bone marrow cancer, but I'd never heard of this type of cancer before. We certainly need to be doing a lot more research than what currently is happening for cancer patients.
Yeah. I think with cancer, there are so many different strands. The one I have is uncommon, but we don't know enough about this disease. We all have the ability to develop cancer within us. We have the cancer gene in us. It's what triggers it to become active is what, I think, scientists need to work on more.
I am in a unique position in the sense that I'm a single woman who doesn't have a child or a family, an immediate family of my own, like no partner or husband. I think when you are given a diagnosis like that, the added worry of how will that affect the people directly in my life, my loved ones, I cannot imagine how difficult that must be. That's one thing that I don't have to worry about. My parents are in their seventies, and I love them to pieces, but I know that I don't have to worry about them for long. It's just me that I have to worry about, if that makes sense.
No. That does make sense entirely, as well, I guess, there's freedom to make some decisions that directly relate to your life immediately now - The freedom to up and travel and continue doing what you're doing. But I think it's interesting that you highlight that, because it just goes to show. Everyone's experience with this will be very, very different.
Yes. Completely.
I will say, though. One positive in your story, is as you said, you are very fit and you're very active. The thing that I took from your blog post when I read it was that as big of a tragedy as this is, at the same time, you certainly aren't letting your diagnosis dictate your life. You're not letting it rule what you do. You said that, in fact, it's going to spur you on to do more. Obviously, you're an accomplished woman as it is. In the past few years, you've seen so much of the world. What are your plans for 2018? What do you hope to achieve?
I'm not sure about ... Well, immediately what I would like to achieve would be to become an instructor, so I hope I qualify at the end of March. That's the first achievement. Then I need to get a job, because I haven't worked in over a year. I think the next thing will be to look at getting a job in the dive industry as an instructor, if my bloods are stable. That's the next goal, but I can't really plan for much further than that, because like I said, I'm living quarter to quarter.
Can you tell us a little bit about your diving? Obviously you've told us some now, but I also noticed that you were into free diving as well, which is ... The idea of diving, I'm not going to lie. I'm one of those people that think I would be very scared diving. I've never dove before, but particularly free diving. How did you get into that and what is it that draws you to that kind of diving?
I will say, though. One positive in your story, is as you said, you are very fit and you're very active. The thing that I took from your blog post when I read it was that as big of a tragedy as this is, at the same time, you certainly aren't letting your diagnosis dictate your life. You're not letting it rule what you do. You said that, in fact, it's going to spur you on to do more. Obviously, you're an accomplished woman as it is. In the past few years, you've seen so much of the world. What are your plans for 2018? What do you hope to achieve?
I'm not sure about ... Well, immediately what I would like to achieve would be to become an instructor, so I hope I qualify at the end of March. That's the first achievement. Then I need to get a job, because I haven't worked in over a year. I think the next thing will be to look at getting a job in the dive industry as an instructor, if my bloods are stable. That's the next goal, but I can't really plan for much further than that, because like I said, I'm living quarter to quarter.
Can you tell us a little bit about your diving? Obviously you've told us some now, but I also noticed that you were into free diving as well, which is ... The idea of diving, I'm not going to lie. I'm one of those people that think I would be very scared diving. I've never dove before, but particularly free diving. How did you get into that and what is it that draws you to that kind of diving?
Learning to free dive in Bali, July 2017.
Asha with her freediving instructor John in The Philippines in September 2017.
It was purely by accident. I had finished my dive master, and I was travelling in Indonesia. I had just come back from diving in probably one of the best places in the world, which is Komodo. Some of the most extraordinary diving you could ever want as an advanced diver. There are strong currents, which allow you to fly through the water, and it is the closest thing to what I imagine being in space is like. It's just phenomenal. The mega fauna you see, the macro diving, that's the small stuff that you see, was just magnificent. I think I ticked everything off on the box I wanted to in Komodo.
I had a few days to spare before my next flight, and I couldn't dive, because when you do scuba, you need to have a certain amount of time on land before you can get into an aeroplane, because it's dangerous. You might suffer decompression sickness. I was toying with the idea of free diving, which I'd never done before. I had no idea whether I'd be any good at it or whether I'd actually be able to hold my breath. I met a really lovely Irish guy in Indonesia who is setting up his own free diving school. He convinced me to take a two-day course, because I was flying on the third day. With free diving, because you're not breathing in compressed air, you can get on a plane without any problems.
Prior to doing any kind of breathing exercises ... I do yoga, but I'd never practised holding my breath in that kind of way before ... I was really sceptical. I was really sceptical about me being able to dive longer than 20 seconds. You do a day of classroom breathing. You learn about the technique, and then you do it a session in the pool, where you learn to get relaxed and you hold your breath. Of course, all of this is very different when you get into the ocean, because as you dive deeper, you experience pressure, which is something you don't experience in the swimming pool at all.
I loved it. What I loved about it was that it allowed me to get into a meditative state in a way that scuba doesn't. With scuba, you're always hearing yourself breathing. There's so much noise from the tank. But with free diving, it allows you to go to a place, your happy place is what they call it, because that's what you're meant to find in order to try and control the contractions when your diaphragm starts moving and your brain tells you you need to breathe when you don't. You just need to relax into it, and you'll dive a bit deeper.
I really enjoyed it. After two days, I'd managed to pass my level one, and then in the Philippines, I did a personal best of 22.3, which was great. I'm hoping possibly in Costa Rica to do some more free diving, because I'd love to do my level two, which is to a maximum depth of 30. But that, again, involves another breathing technique.
I had a few days to spare before my next flight, and I couldn't dive, because when you do scuba, you need to have a certain amount of time on land before you can get into an aeroplane, because it's dangerous. You might suffer decompression sickness. I was toying with the idea of free diving, which I'd never done before. I had no idea whether I'd be any good at it or whether I'd actually be able to hold my breath. I met a really lovely Irish guy in Indonesia who is setting up his own free diving school. He convinced me to take a two-day course, because I was flying on the third day. With free diving, because you're not breathing in compressed air, you can get on a plane without any problems.
Prior to doing any kind of breathing exercises ... I do yoga, but I'd never practised holding my breath in that kind of way before ... I was really sceptical. I was really sceptical about me being able to dive longer than 20 seconds. You do a day of classroom breathing. You learn about the technique, and then you do it a session in the pool, where you learn to get relaxed and you hold your breath. Of course, all of this is very different when you get into the ocean, because as you dive deeper, you experience pressure, which is something you don't experience in the swimming pool at all.
I loved it. What I loved about it was that it allowed me to get into a meditative state in a way that scuba doesn't. With scuba, you're always hearing yourself breathing. There's so much noise from the tank. But with free diving, it allows you to go to a place, your happy place is what they call it, because that's what you're meant to find in order to try and control the contractions when your diaphragm starts moving and your brain tells you you need to breathe when you don't. You just need to relax into it, and you'll dive a bit deeper.
I really enjoyed it. After two days, I'd managed to pass my level one, and then in the Philippines, I did a personal best of 22.3, which was great. I'm hoping possibly in Costa Rica to do some more free diving, because I'd love to do my level two, which is to a maximum depth of 30. But that, again, involves another breathing technique.
Bali freediving, July 2017.
Wow. It just sounds amazing. The pressure, though. Is that something physically ... You're talking about your diaphragm there, but would you feel that in your ears as well?
Yeah. With all diving, you have to equalise. That means just clearing the airways. Otherwise, you're going to bust an eardrum, and you don't want that to happen. You can use, the same way that when you scuba, you can pinch your nose when you free dive as a beginner to level one only. But when you get to level two, anything after 25 metres, you need to learn a different equalising technique, called the Frenzel technique, where you clear your airways without but using your hands*. It's almost like moving your ears. I've yet to do it at that depth, so I can't really talk about it, because I haven't tried it.
It's not meant to be that difficult if you're able to move your ears, which I can do. I'm very comfortable in the water now, so I'm looking forward to trying level two. You've got to relax. If you're thinking about anything that's bothering you, it will surface in your head, and you won't be able to dive. You'll be thinking about whatever it is that's bothering you. You've got to be in a good mental state, a happy place, when you free dive, where you're completely relaxed, and you're not stressed or worried or concerned about anything, because that's the only thing that you'll think about when you're diving, because there's no other sound in there apart from your mind.
Yeah. With all diving, you have to equalise. That means just clearing the airways. Otherwise, you're going to bust an eardrum, and you don't want that to happen. You can use, the same way that when you scuba, you can pinch your nose when you free dive as a beginner to level one only. But when you get to level two, anything after 25 metres, you need to learn a different equalising technique, called the Frenzel technique, where you clear your airways without but using your hands*. It's almost like moving your ears. I've yet to do it at that depth, so I can't really talk about it, because I haven't tried it.
It's not meant to be that difficult if you're able to move your ears, which I can do. I'm very comfortable in the water now, so I'm looking forward to trying level two. You've got to relax. If you're thinking about anything that's bothering you, it will surface in your head, and you won't be able to dive. You'll be thinking about whatever it is that's bothering you. You've got to be in a good mental state, a happy place, when you free dive, where you're completely relaxed, and you're not stressed or worried or concerned about anything, because that's the only thing that you'll think about when you're diving, because there's no other sound in there apart from your mind.
The team, Bali freediving, July 2017.
That sounds intense. Do you have people ... Obviously, you're out on a boat or there are people there with you, but do people dive down with you, or do they wait at the surface for you?
You generally have an instructor or a training buddy with you. They will watch you go down, and then you go down on your own for whatever depth it is that you need to go to. When you come up, generally, you should have somebody waiting to come up with you for the last 10 or 11 metres, because it's during that time that you might be in danger of blackout, because you might have ... Your carbon dioxide levels might end up resulting in you blacking out**. So when you come to the surface, how you do your recovery breaths is really, really important. You must signal that you're okay.
You generally have an instructor or a training buddy with you. They will watch you go down, and then you go down on your own for whatever depth it is that you need to go to. When you come up, generally, you should have somebody waiting to come up with you for the last 10 or 11 metres, because it's during that time that you might be in danger of blackout, because you might have ... Your carbon dioxide levels might end up resulting in you blacking out**. So when you come to the surface, how you do your recovery breaths is really, really important. You must signal that you're okay.
All your careers seem to coexist together, but regardless, you've done a lot of travel with your journalism, with-
No. Not with journalism at all.
Oh, really?!
Everybody always thinks that all my travel has been through my work. It's all self-funded.
Oh, really? That's no fair!
Yeah. It's completely self-funded. The only bit of foreign travel I've done was when I lived in Istanbul, worked in Istanbul and had a deployment to Saudi Arabia. Obviously, some deployments in Turkey. I probably had two other foreign deployments, both to Europe. Other than that, everything else, all of my ... I've done more than 60 countries. They've all been self-funded.
You've broken a bit of the romantic bubble there for journalism, I must say!
Yeah. No. If you're hoping to become a journalist and travel for free, it doesn't happen. It doesn't happen.
Oh, dear. Well, you've travelled a lot, so we won't say with journalism. You've certainly gotten around to many different countries. How have you been received in the communities that you've lived in and worked in? Say for primatology, for example. Has that been a positive experience for you working with local people?
Oh, my God. When I did my research in Uganda, it was the most humbling experience I could have had. I suffered redundancy straight off to the crash of 2008, and I was a relatively high profile anchor on British television. I went to study and collect data in some of the poorest rural communities of Africa, where I was shown humility firsthand. It was the most beautiful experience of my life. These people who have nothing would have given me the shirt off their back. It was brilliant. Absolutely brilliant.
I remember a lot of people, a lot of friends, taking the micky saying, "Where are you going to plug your hair dryer in," or, "How are you going to walk in stiletto?" All these sorts of comments, because as an anchor, you portray a certain image, but obviously in a different environment, you adapt. But it was humbling. It was so humbling and the best thing that could have happened to me. It gave me a proper grounding about getting a reality check as to what is important in life, and to experience that firsthand was the best thing that could have happened to me. It changed me so much as a person. I had a road to Damascus for the first time. I've had another one since, but it was brilliant. It was absolutely brilliant.
No. Not with journalism at all.
Oh, really?!
Everybody always thinks that all my travel has been through my work. It's all self-funded.
Oh, really? That's no fair!
Yeah. It's completely self-funded. The only bit of foreign travel I've done was when I lived in Istanbul, worked in Istanbul and had a deployment to Saudi Arabia. Obviously, some deployments in Turkey. I probably had two other foreign deployments, both to Europe. Other than that, everything else, all of my ... I've done more than 60 countries. They've all been self-funded.
You've broken a bit of the romantic bubble there for journalism, I must say!
Yeah. No. If you're hoping to become a journalist and travel for free, it doesn't happen. It doesn't happen.
Oh, dear. Well, you've travelled a lot, so we won't say with journalism. You've certainly gotten around to many different countries. How have you been received in the communities that you've lived in and worked in? Say for primatology, for example. Has that been a positive experience for you working with local people?
Oh, my God. When I did my research in Uganda, it was the most humbling experience I could have had. I suffered redundancy straight off to the crash of 2008, and I was a relatively high profile anchor on British television. I went to study and collect data in some of the poorest rural communities of Africa, where I was shown humility firsthand. It was the most beautiful experience of my life. These people who have nothing would have given me the shirt off their back. It was brilliant. Absolutely brilliant.
I remember a lot of people, a lot of friends, taking the micky saying, "Where are you going to plug your hair dryer in," or, "How are you going to walk in stiletto?" All these sorts of comments, because as an anchor, you portray a certain image, but obviously in a different environment, you adapt. But it was humbling. It was so humbling and the best thing that could have happened to me. It gave me a proper grounding about getting a reality check as to what is important in life, and to experience that firsthand was the best thing that could have happened to me. It changed me so much as a person. I had a road to Damascus for the first time. I've had another one since, but it was brilliant. It was absolutely brilliant.
Uganda Budongo Forest Reserve. Conservationist Nick Cockayne and Moses, Asha's former field assistant, after a re-visit to the rainforest in June 2014.
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Local women, Rwanda, 2014.
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Uganda Budongo Forest Reserve, 2014
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Rwanda Mountain Gorillas. Susa Group, 2014.
From your perspective and through those experiences, how are local communities impacted by lack of conservation and environmental degradation, because obviously we often think about species that we are trying to conserve, but I imagine these lack of conservation and environmental degradation has impacts on local communities as well. Have you seen any of that personally?
In the industry itself, it's called human/wildlife conflict. The problem is the population is growing so fast globally everywhere. We are demanding ... We're putting too much pressure on the planet for resources. We need space to put houses or settlements in rural areas. If you're looking at the West, we need minerals and we need products that come out of the developing world. So we are driving problem of conservation, or I should say the battle against conservation, so that the more the population needs things from the planet, I think the more pressure conservation feels.
A lot of rural communities have lived off the land for millennia and have successfully done so and have never damaged the planet in the way that we are doing at this rate. There are other communities who have a different attitude and think potentially ... Religion does play some part in it. Potentially believes that God put these things on the planet to benefit people, therefore, they should be able to take whatever it is that they need in order to survive or sell in order for money. It's a very difficult subject to talk about, because if you are poor and you need to feed your family, you're going to do whatever it takes. It's very easy to sit and judge when you can just go to the supermarket and buy what you want without having those decisions to make yourself.
There needs to be more dialogue, definitely. I think the big corporations, like logging companies, palm oil production companies, these kinds of people need to speak more to scientists to understand the impact that they are having on the environment and also on the local communities that also try to survive on the land, because they affect many livelihoods. Oil is another massive problem. There are rural communities who have been sitting on oil and have no idea, and they are muscled off their land and given a few thousand dollars. Then you have oil companies that come in, suck out the oil, and the land is left useless and barren. The bio-diversity suffers, and the local people suffer. It's a horrible thing to witness, and I saw that in Uganda when I was doing my research in Bisou. It's difficult. You try and ask questions or you try and challenge, but when you're talking about multi-billion dollars of contracts, it's a dangerous game to play if you're a single woman out there on your own. That you've got to be really careful about how you rock the boat.
I think that's a really valuable point to make, that it's good to rock the boat, but you've also got to be realistic about what the outcomes for that will be. As you said, being a single woman in a remote area, it's probably not going to have a huge impact anyway, even if you did attempt to rock the boat. I think you hit the nail on the head there about dialogue. I think there needs to be more dialogue with everybody. Conservationists, these big companies as well. It's just unfortunate that it's still, even though we're aware of these issues, it still doesn't seem to be happening as much as it should.
Yeah. We are losing the battle. I know lots of people want to try and be optimistic, but the truth is I've interviewed Jane Goodall a number of times. She's an imminent primatologist, for anyone who doesn't know her. She said something very poignant to me when I interviewed here, which is, "We only have one planet. We don't have another planet, so why is it that the primate with the largest brain is destroying its own planet?"
In the industry itself, it's called human/wildlife conflict. The problem is the population is growing so fast globally everywhere. We are demanding ... We're putting too much pressure on the planet for resources. We need space to put houses or settlements in rural areas. If you're looking at the West, we need minerals and we need products that come out of the developing world. So we are driving problem of conservation, or I should say the battle against conservation, so that the more the population needs things from the planet, I think the more pressure conservation feels.
A lot of rural communities have lived off the land for millennia and have successfully done so and have never damaged the planet in the way that we are doing at this rate. There are other communities who have a different attitude and think potentially ... Religion does play some part in it. Potentially believes that God put these things on the planet to benefit people, therefore, they should be able to take whatever it is that they need in order to survive or sell in order for money. It's a very difficult subject to talk about, because if you are poor and you need to feed your family, you're going to do whatever it takes. It's very easy to sit and judge when you can just go to the supermarket and buy what you want without having those decisions to make yourself.
There needs to be more dialogue, definitely. I think the big corporations, like logging companies, palm oil production companies, these kinds of people need to speak more to scientists to understand the impact that they are having on the environment and also on the local communities that also try to survive on the land, because they affect many livelihoods. Oil is another massive problem. There are rural communities who have been sitting on oil and have no idea, and they are muscled off their land and given a few thousand dollars. Then you have oil companies that come in, suck out the oil, and the land is left useless and barren. The bio-diversity suffers, and the local people suffer. It's a horrible thing to witness, and I saw that in Uganda when I was doing my research in Bisou. It's difficult. You try and ask questions or you try and challenge, but when you're talking about multi-billion dollars of contracts, it's a dangerous game to play if you're a single woman out there on your own. That you've got to be really careful about how you rock the boat.
I think that's a really valuable point to make, that it's good to rock the boat, but you've also got to be realistic about what the outcomes for that will be. As you said, being a single woman in a remote area, it's probably not going to have a huge impact anyway, even if you did attempt to rock the boat. I think you hit the nail on the head there about dialogue. I think there needs to be more dialogue with everybody. Conservationists, these big companies as well. It's just unfortunate that it's still, even though we're aware of these issues, it still doesn't seem to be happening as much as it should.
Yeah. We are losing the battle. I know lots of people want to try and be optimistic, but the truth is I've interviewed Jane Goodall a number of times. She's an imminent primatologist, for anyone who doesn't know her. She said something very poignant to me when I interviewed here, which is, "We only have one planet. We don't have another planet, so why is it that the primate with the largest brain is destroying its own planet?"
Georgia, March 2016, Mount Kazbegi.
Yeah. When you think about it, it's scary. It doesn't make any sense. Unfortunately, I feel like things are accelerating. That's around the world. Even with simple things, such as climate change ... Which is not up for debate. It is happening ... seems to be something that you can have an opinion on now as to whether you agree with it or not. I think while we're in that frame of mind, it's not looking positive, unfortunately.
I wanted to move on a little bit to about you a bit more personally. The Fierce Women Collective Project came about in part by recognition of the fact that confidence is so important for people to achieve what they want to achieve, but for women in particular, it can be something that is lacking. For yourself, you appear to be a very confident woman. You're very successful. You seem to have a tenacity in you that allows you to go and pursue things that you want to pursue, which takes confidence. I was wondering if you could provide a little bit of perspective on that. How do you encourage confidence in yourself?
I think it comes with age. I really do. I think if you're extremely confident at the age of 20, then you're very lucky or you've had an extraordinary upbringing, because I was nowhere near the woman I am today when I was 20. I think it comes from life experience, what you allow yourself to be exposed to and how life shapes you. If you can see challenges as exactly as they are, challenges, not obstacles. That it's not something that makes you stop. You actually go over it or you go around it. You find a way. I think that can help shape you as a person. You can learn a lot about yourself.
You should feel confident by being happy as well, happy with who you are. I think in this day and age, women in particular, young women in particular, are given such mixed messages through social media, through magazines, through male stereotypes, unfortunately, that they have all these other pressures that ... Again, we go back to gender equality ... that young men and older men just simply do not have. It's hard being a confident woman. I don't think that there is an easy way, but I think if you try and be happy with who you are and overcome whatever challenges that are put in front of you in the best way you possibly can and learn from them, it doesn't matter how awful it was. If you can learn from them, and as you get older, I don't think you really care anymore. I think that confidence comes from the ability to not worry so much about what other people think or what society deems is right.
I wanted to move on a little bit to about you a bit more personally. The Fierce Women Collective Project came about in part by recognition of the fact that confidence is so important for people to achieve what they want to achieve, but for women in particular, it can be something that is lacking. For yourself, you appear to be a very confident woman. You're very successful. You seem to have a tenacity in you that allows you to go and pursue things that you want to pursue, which takes confidence. I was wondering if you could provide a little bit of perspective on that. How do you encourage confidence in yourself?
I think it comes with age. I really do. I think if you're extremely confident at the age of 20, then you're very lucky or you've had an extraordinary upbringing, because I was nowhere near the woman I am today when I was 20. I think it comes from life experience, what you allow yourself to be exposed to and how life shapes you. If you can see challenges as exactly as they are, challenges, not obstacles. That it's not something that makes you stop. You actually go over it or you go around it. You find a way. I think that can help shape you as a person. You can learn a lot about yourself.
You should feel confident by being happy as well, happy with who you are. I think in this day and age, women in particular, young women in particular, are given such mixed messages through social media, through magazines, through male stereotypes, unfortunately, that they have all these other pressures that ... Again, we go back to gender equality ... that young men and older men just simply do not have. It's hard being a confident woman. I don't think that there is an easy way, but I think if you try and be happy with who you are and overcome whatever challenges that are put in front of you in the best way you possibly can and learn from them, it doesn't matter how awful it was. If you can learn from them, and as you get older, I don't think you really care anymore. I think that confidence comes from the ability to not worry so much about what other people think or what society deems is right.
What advice would you have for women in terms of making a career change or following a different path from where they started? I think this question is particularly relevant to you. Obviously, I could ask your advice on the many, many things that you've done, but I feel like your ability to be able to make those changes. I acknowledge that, say, in going back to primatology, part of that was circumstance with the crash in the market that led you to make that choice. But do you have a perspective on your ability to just follow what you want to follow or advice for women on how to take that leap to follow a different path?
I think in a utopian world, it would be brilliant if everybody could follow exactly what they wanted to do, but if you've got a family and you've got kids and you've got bills that you have to pay, then you're tied into something that you can't just walk away from. You have to look at your choices very carefully. I would always say do what makes you happy. If you're unhappy, it's only going to make you more miserable as time goes on. If you can find a way to get rid of the misery and find happiness by doing what you love, then obviously go for it. But it's not easy for everybody, because you're tied down by certain things. You may well have responsibilities that I don't have. So I empathise.
Look, Asha. Thank you so much for speaking with me today. We've covered so many different topics. You're such a dynamic person. I really appreciate your time, and I've certainly gotten a lot from this interview, and I know many other women will as well. Thanks so much. I really wish you all the best in everything that you pursue in the coming year, but also in your diagnosis and the steps along that path as well.
Thank you so much, Victoria.
I think in a utopian world, it would be brilliant if everybody could follow exactly what they wanted to do, but if you've got a family and you've got kids and you've got bills that you have to pay, then you're tied into something that you can't just walk away from. You have to look at your choices very carefully. I would always say do what makes you happy. If you're unhappy, it's only going to make you more miserable as time goes on. If you can find a way to get rid of the misery and find happiness by doing what you love, then obviously go for it. But it's not easy for everybody, because you're tied down by certain things. You may well have responsibilities that I don't have. So I empathise.
Look, Asha. Thank you so much for speaking with me today. We've covered so many different topics. You're such a dynamic person. I really appreciate your time, and I've certainly gotten a lot from this interview, and I know many other women will as well. Thanks so much. I really wish you all the best in everything that you pursue in the coming year, but also in your diagnosis and the steps along that path as well.
Thank you so much, Victoria.
Asha and the sunrise at the summit of Mount Fuji in Japan, August 2017.
Diving information corrections
*Frenzel can be done using your hands. It’s when you use the muscles in the throat, cheeks and the tongue to compress the airspace you have created. You can push the tongue up inside the space, making a K-Lock (the movement
you make when you say the letter K) while you equalise.
**Blackout is due to very low oxygen levels as you surface rather than carbon dioxide levels.
Diving information corrections
*Frenzel can be done using your hands. It’s when you use the muscles in the throat, cheeks and the tongue to compress the airspace you have created. You can push the tongue up inside the space, making a K-Lock (the movement
you make when you say the letter K) while you equalise.
**Blackout is due to very low oxygen levels as you surface rather than carbon dioxide levels.
Victoria Austin FWC 2018