Judi Dench plants a tree whenever a friend dies as she describes love for nature
Judi Dench counts champagne and Shakespeare among her passions but it’s her devotion to the countryside that fills her with every emotion, from anger to utter joy.
When not dazzling on stage or screen, the Bond star is most likely to be found staring into the sky with binoculars, spotting otters or hugging one of her beloved trees. But such is Dame Judi’s love for nature that she is truly devastated if she sees a felled tree or a logging truck.
Her face creasing with anger, the 88-year-old says: “As a child I used to get irrationally upset to see long lorries with huge trees on. I can’t explain that. I still don’t like seeing trees being felled.” She also plants a tree for every friend who has died and adds: “I have a lot of famous people in my garden.”
It was her love of nature – otters and squirrels, to be precise – that first attracted her to her partner of 13 years, former farmer David Mills.It’s no surprise, then, that the actress has been invited to be guest editor on BBC One’s Countryfile, visiting the Scottish Highlands with presenters including Strictly Come Dancing winner and wildlife cameraman Hamza Yassin.
In the episode to be screened on Sunday she opens up about her enduring love of wildlife and the countryside, and calls on people to protect, not destroy it. Judi tells of her lifelong ambition to see golden eagles in the wild, remembering only one glimpse of a bird of prey in Scotland years ago.
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She says: “We were on a back road, I was driving and I looked up and there was an eagle. I said to my daughter Finty, ‘You look at the road, I’ll look at the eagle’. I was driving, shameful isn’t it.” So when Hamza spots two golden eagles, one male and one female, soaring out of the mist, Judi is overwhelmed. Clasping his hand, she says: “I saw one… two. How breathtaking. I’m overcome. It’s an enormous privilege. How often does anybody see that? Not very often.”
Dame Judi Dench has a lifelong bond with nature (Getty Images)
Dame Judi with partner David Mills (Dave Benett/Getty Images for George Pragnell LTD)It’s particularly momentous for Judi, given her struggles with severely deteriorating eyesight, a result of age-related macular degeneration. Speaking at Inveraray Castle, in Argyll, Countryfile regular Charlotte Smith asks her how she stays so positive about losing her sight. The star, a talented watercolour artist who once wanted to be a stage designer, says: “I have no option, or I’ll just fall over. But I’ve got wonderful people who help me.”
During the programme, Judi decides to give oil painting a go for the first time, with help from Glaswegian artist Gordon Wilson. She tries adding a bright red poppy to his painting but the creative moment takes a comical turn when she scratches her forehead without thinking and ends up with red paint on her face.
Judi names Scotland as her spiritual home, even citing a moment with her late husband Michael Williams where she had “second sight”. She says: “We were looking for a certain place and I knew exactly how to find it. I’d never been there, I just knew. Michael, Finty and I used to go camping a lot. He’d scare the wits out of us. Finty and I would get into our sleeping bags, he’d have his quiet vodka and then read us ghost stories, frightened the wits out of us.”
It’s an emotional visit for Judi, who feels a great affinity with Scotland after making many films there including Skyfall (2012), Mrs Brown (1997) and Victoria & Abdul (2017). She recounts how filming an emotional scene next to a loch for Victoria & Abdul was actually more of a fight scene against the midges and how a scene with Billy Connolly for Mrs Brown was rudely interrupted by a horse with wind.
She also recalls: “Albert Finney and I thought we were going to Scotland for two weeks for Skyfall. We got intensely excited. We flew up at 7.30pm and were in Glencoe at 5.30am the next morning... and were back on a plane that evening. It was just a question of standing there with the car and Daniel Craig – just looking – then back into the car. But we did see a bit of Glencoe.”
The countryside has clearly always had a huge impact on her family. Reminiscing about her childhood with brothers Jeffrey and Peter, she says: “We lived in York. We all had bikes, the boys and my Ma and Pa. We used to cycle from York to Castle Howard, which is quite a long way. You’d fortunately turn off just before you’d lose your breath and fall off the bike. We’d swim in the lake, that’s where I learnt to swim. It was a huge treat to swim and cycle there. It was like Swallows and Amazons.
“Where we lived was famous for owls. We’d look out of the loo window and see an owl sitting there. They lived in the barn at the end of the garden. My brother Jeff would collect the pellets so we had those all over the house.” Her passion for the countryside has had a huge influence on her grandson, Tik Tok star Sam Williams, who also features in the BBC documentary.
Presenter Adam Henson also meets Judi’s partner David, an award-winning farmer who gave up dairying to create the British Wildlife Centre on his Surrey farm. David says: “I saw Judi visiting the centre with her family and she said ‘Is there anything we can ever do to help?’ So I asked her to open our squirrel enclosure.
“She said yes and the rest is history. She loves the animals, she actually goes in and talks to them. Judi loves the squirrels and otters. She fell in love with them first.” A shared love of the countryside and conservation, as well as the beautiful, tree-filled garden in their Surrey home, means the future of the planet is always on their minds. David says: “Judi knows what’s happening to the planet and she’s worried about it.”
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Judi says: “I think suddenly now there is an awareness that we need to preserve nature. It’s really important that we spread the word. People’s attitude towards looking after the country is stronger now and is changing. We’re made more aware of what we destroy and what we must preserve. We are now more aware of plastic and what harm it does in the sea. Hopefully, it will become a lotmore focused. Just look at all that we have. We simply cannot destroy it.”
* Countryfile Dame Judi Dench Special, Sunday, BBC One at 7pm.
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