WHAT was your childhood ambition? When Ryan Shorter, now thirty, wrote a letter about his ambition to own his own zoo, he was just twelve years old. No-one imagined this childhood dream would one day

Amateur botanist John Bradby Blake and his collaborators never completed their illustrated record of Chinese flora, but they still stoked Britain’s passion for the Asian country’s plants

WHEN I first met Polly, I was a nine-year-old lad, who had been living in Nigeria for just over a year, yearning to have a parrot like other army families had. It was early December 1955, on a hot, du

One of the largest celebrations in the world is about to begin. The Chinese New Year, or Spring Festival, is a 15-day celebration at the end of winter, and this year it kicks off at the start of the l

Sipping tea in their suburban home, Jan Creamer and her husband Tim Phillips look like an ordinary couple putting their feet up. But appearances could not be more deceptive. This formidable pair have

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